Fire's Odyssey
by MidnightRaith
Summary: Eight years after Kris rises to the title of Pokemon Master, Rylie Richards wants her own journey. However, her recent move to the Johto region and a run in with a Team Rocket experiment complicate her dreams. ON HOLD
1. NSL

**Hello, this AN is to inform everyone of the updating schedule for this fic. Nothing really important. In the next few days, I plan on posting the second chapter, then after that I will move to weekly updates. All right then, this first chapter is a bit slow, but the second's the one that'll get the story going. Thanks for everyone's time. :)**

**I will never own Pokemon.**

1

My father got the job at the Goldenrod Radio Tower. Yeah, it's great and all, but I can't say I'm happy about moving from the Hoenn region. I don't have any friends in Johto and I don't know anything about the pokémon there. I had planned to go on my own League challenge in Hoenn and I'd started on some research and everything. Now I'd have to start all over.

That's what my parents suggested at least. The thing is I can't say I'm even excited anymore. It kind of burst my bubble. It was bad enough that as a sixteen-year-old, I should have already gone on my own challenge, but now I'd have the further embarrassment of not knowing anything about whatever is considered common knowledge here.

So, here I am, about to start the tenth grade with some kids that have already gone and finished a challenge. I was sort of nervous, like any person would be who isn't antisocial anyway, but I knew that this wouldn't be too bad. At least, I hoped it wouldn't.

I couldn't help but think that my optimism wasn't going to help me. I wasn't really a loner, but I haven't exactly had many friends. I've found that I have a problem with relating to people usually, I only have one or two friends and the two I had are back in Hoenn.

As soon as I was led to my homeroom, I was introduced to my new classmates as Rylie Richards. I found that I really didn't enjoy being thrown in front of a room full of people that I didn't know and then be expected to answer questions all about where I was from and such. I sort of froze up though, and was only to mumble some answers that I didn't remember after I was allowed to sit down at the back of the classroom.

"Hey" my neighbor, small, brown haired girl whispered, "don't you hate it when teachers like Patterson do that?"

I came from a tiny town back home, so I didn't even know there were teachers that actually did this sort of thing. However, I didn't want to seem like some hick from a backwater town, so I lied.

"Uh, yeah, they're pretty…unfair." I said lamely.

The girl didn't seem to notice my terrible answer. She just smiled at me sympathetically. I didn't know whether I should be irritated that my pathetic situation had attracted what may be the school welcome mat, or happy that I met what might be someone friendly.

"I'm Sara," she told me.

"Oh, ah, I'm Rylie."

"Yeah," she giggled, "Rylie Richards."

I blushed as I realized that she pretty much knew my whole back-story from that introduction my homeroom teacher had forced me to give. Yeah, I've always wanted to have a reputation for being an idiot…. I'm starting off stunningly.

Sara ignored my forgetfulness and went back to our whispered conversation.

"Goldenrod's not that bad, though. There are plenty of shops, a bike shop and there's that park to the north of the city so there's always something to do here," she continued, "We've even got our own radio tower."

"My dad got a job there. That's why we moved here," I told her, not really enjoying the reminder of how I ended up here.

"Really?" Sara asked excitedly, "That's awesome! I've always wanted to see what it's like to work there. Did you know that Professor Oak himself has a broadcast? Maybe your dad could give us a tour or something."

"I guess he could, but he's only a producer for one of the late night segments so he doesn't really get the chance to meet anybody from the popular broadcasts," I didn't really like that Sara seemed to be one of those people that only wants to get something out of others. She might just be interested in the Radio Tower, though, so who really knows?

"Oh, well that's cool that he works there anyway. You want to go to the department store after school? You know, just look around and stuff," she offered.

I was surprised to find myself relieved that Sara hadn't lost interest in me when she realized that I couldn't get her into the radio tower. I often find myself thinking the worst of people. I'm just not good with the trusting people thing.

"Yeah, I'll ask my mom."

We had to stop talking after that because it was time for second period. Sara had me show her my schedule and she revealed that we only had lunch and last period, which was P.E., together. I found myself feeling disappointed about this; I didn't like hearing that I didn't have the majority of my classes with what I hoped to be my new friend.

Sara was nice enough to show me where my next class was, which was math. The class was Algebra II to be exact. I like math, there's only one answer to every problem and since it's such a straight forward class, it's very rare for the teacher to force us to work together. I don't enjoy group work. At my old school, any group I was in tended to do nothing and left the project for me to do. That's the curse for not having many friends, yet having good grades, get you, I guess.

The teacher didn't make me do anything introductory wise. She looked like one of those cut-and-dry, no nonsense types, and I knew I was going to end up liking this class simply because the teacher was going to leave me alone.

My classmates didn't bother me too much either. I guess with them living in such large city for so long, they were accustomed to having new students show up from time to time. Really, the only thing they were interested in, as far as I went, was the Hoenn region. They wanted to know what kinds of pokémon lived there, how strong the trainers were, what the gyms were like. However, it soon became obvious that I didn't know anything about that. I only knew the local pokémon and our region's legendaries. A little bit about the gyms; I may have done some research, but I had to be honest. I really wasn't in a position to claim I knew anything. They listened to me talk about the legendary pokémon for a while, but soon lost interest in me. I was surprised that no one made fun of me for only knowing the extreme basics of Hoenn's gyms or my not knowing anything about trainers.

Lunch came quickly. I was probably the most boring new student in the history of Goldenrod High, home of the Miltanks. I pretty much followed the rest of the students to the cafeteria like I was part of a herd of pink, milk producing bovines and found that I couldn't really make fun of Goldenrod's mascot.

After getting my food, I found myself experiencing NSL syndrome. This is more commonly known as New Student Lunchtime syndrome. Common side effects are feeling an increase in heart rate, standing in front of a large crowd and staring at various tables, and an overwhelming desire to eat in the library, bathroom or outside. Since I didn't know the school's policy towards food in their library, and the fact that the very idea of eating in a place where people urinate and defecate makes me physically ill, the only other choice was outside.

"Where are you going, Rylie?" I heard a voice call from behind me as I headed for the nearest exit.

I turned and saw Sara holding her own tray and grinning at me.

"Um, nothing," I said quickly, not wanting her to know that I was about to eat outside, by myself, like a loser.

"Well, my table's over here," she gestured in the opposite direction from where I was going.

She led me to a table with two boys already there. They were arguing amongst themselves and as we neared them and could hear what they were talking about, I noticed that I couldn't understand anything they said.

"Knock it off you two," Sara said as we sat down, "Rylie's new here and I don't want you guys to scare her off with your nerd speak," she teased.

"Hmph, just tell Connor that it's a stupid idea to put Hoenn pokémon in our simulation," one of the boys said. He had a wiry build with blond hair and green eyes.

The other boy, Connor, laughed, "Calm down, Andrew, it's not like it'll be too difficult. Just add some more information, enter some more stats, it'll be easy."

Connor didn't look like he'd be the type to be talking about pokémon training simulators. He looked like he should be playing sports and beating the snot out of kids like Andrew with his larger build and good looks. He had jet black hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

"It won't be realistic! That's the whole point of having a simulation, to simulate what it would be like for a pokémon trainer in Johto!" Andrew seethed.

"Realistic? Hey, if we wanted real, then we could go on an actual challenge. But, we don't want real, do we? We don't want any of the hunger, the camping outside, or dealing with disobedient pokémon. We just want to sit back at the computer and pretend that we could all be the greatest pokémon trainers in history. All without any of the hard work," Connor laughed again.

Andrew was about to snap back, but Sara jumped in before this could turn into a nerd feud by using me as a distraction.

"So, Rylie's from Hoenn and her dad got a job at the Radio Tower," she said.

"You're from Hoenn?"

"You're dad works at the Radio Tower?" Connor and Andrew said in unison.

"Um, yeah."

"So, is your dad a techie?" Andrew asked.

"A…what?"

"You know, somebody that works the tech. The brains behind all the broadcasts. The unsung heroes!" he answered with zeal.

"He's a producer…," I said, taken aback by Andrew's excitement.

"Forget about all that," Connor said dismissively, "What's the training scene like back in Hoenn?"

"Tough?" I offered.

"Oh, you aren't a trainer," he stated, obviously disappointed.

"Is that a problem?" I asked defensively.

"Nah, Sara, Drew and lots of other kids here haven't ever been trainers," he answered cheerily; "I just thought I'd finally get somebody in this little group of ours that knew things about being a real trainer."

"I know some things!" Andrew protested.

"Fine, Drew, fine, however these things may or may not be related to pokémon training," Connor said patronizingly, "it's up for debate."

"Boys," Sara interrupted Andrew mid-retort, "Are we trying to scare off Rylie?"

"Eh, why bother acting any different? She'll soon figure out that this is all we ever do," Connor snorted, "Argue," he pointed at himself, "and whine," he indicated Andrew.

"Whine? I don't whine!"

"See what I mean Rylie? Argue and whine," he repeated.

"Yeah, you're a regular old, married couple," I rolled my eyes.

I heard Andrew protest to my left, while Connor's lips twitched into a smirk.

"Ugh, I don't now why I put up with the two of you," Sara said to no one in particular.

"Now that's an easy one," Connor answered, "It's my witty charm. You just can't help yourself," he chuckled under his breath.

The bell rang, ending lunch. The guys wandered off to their classes, leaving Sara and me at the table.

"Witty charm!" she mocked under her breath.

"So, they're always like that?" I asked.

"Unfortunately. Do you know where your next class is?"

"Nope. I have science class next."

She pointed me in the right direction then went off to her English class. I was pleasantly surprised that it was so easy for me to talk to Sara and her friends. I guess Sara just made it easy for people to talk to her.

Last period eventually came around and I once again went back to that annual question of how exactly does physical education teach anyone anything? Never has P.E. ever taught me how to play any sort of official sport. The "coach" simply hands out equipment and pits us against each other. Most of us are really crappy at baseball, but the few that aren't will always be praised and we're all expected to eventually be able to stand a chance against the kid that's been pitching for about six years.

I was pretty lucky that my new friend was just as terrible as I was. It just isn't as fun to suck by yourself. We spent the majority of the class period making fun of each other and everyone else and it actually went pretty quickly.

Once school was over, Sara met me by my locker. She brought Connor with her and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"Hey, you got a cell phone so you can call your mom?" Sara asked.

"No," I felt my face heat up.

Connor handed me his.

"Thanks," I told him and turned away from them before they could see me get any redder.

I dialed my new home number and waited a bit for my mother to answer. She eventually did on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" she asked, sounding a bit breathless. I guessed that the eevee pups that she had bred were becoming a handful.

"Hey, Mom," I answered.

"Rylie? Did your brother leave you at school? I told him to bring you home-"

"No, Mom, I just wanted to know if I could go to the department store with some friends," I interrupted before she could hang up and call Rob to yell at him.

"Oh," she said and I tried not to get mad at her for sounding surprised, "Who are they?"

"Uh," I covered the phone with my hand, "What are your last names?"

"Parker."

"Grey."

"Sara Parker and Connor Grey. They're kids from school, Mom," I prayed that my mother wouldn't get too nosy.

"That's fine, but I want you home before six for dinner," she finally answered.

"Great, bye, Mom," I hung up before she could ask me anything about my day.

We all set off for the store and I handed Connor back his phone. No one spoke for a while, it wasn't awkward, really. I found that I was actually comfortable around them. However, Connor eventually broke the silence.

"So, what's your mom do?"

"We moved to that old pokémon daycare and renovated it. Now she uses it for breeding," I answered.

"She's a breeder? And you never went on your own League challenge," he asked, looking shocked.

"What does my mom being a breeder have to do with taking the Hoenn challenge?" I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Well, nothing, I guess. I just thought she'd be more open with letting you be a trainer. Do you have any siblings? Were they trainers?"

"My brother's seventeen. And no, he isn't a trainer, either. Rob really wasn't into pokémon and I guess my parents aren't comfortable with me going off on my own," I answered.

Connor scoffed at that, "Come on, it's not like anything ever happens to anyone that becomes a trainer. You have pokémon and if you're good, then no one will mess with you. Besides, most of the pokémon we use can breathe fire and crap. Who wants to mess with something that can breathe fire?"

"Well, they told me I could go this summer, so none of this really matters," I snapped.

"All right, didn't know you were so sensitive about this," he held his hands up in mock surrender.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

We're here," Sara said and pulled me inside before I could really get mad at Connor. In fact, I completely forgot what we had been talking about as Sara showed me all the relevant stores here. Connor made his great escape when we started looking at clothes. I'm not into shopping too much, actually, so I didn't blame him for leaving.

After we finally left that shop, we passed by a pet store. Sara was immediately drawn to a small growlithe pup, but I couldn't help but get critical towards it. The pokémon didn't look healthy; in fact, it started coughing and began to let out sparks from its mouth as it did. His breeder must have been terrible.

"Isn't he cute, Rylie?" Sara asked.

The growlithe went into a particularly bad coughing attack.

"Uh, kinda," I answered once it finished.

"What do you mean by 'kinda'"?

"Well, he's sort of coughing up sparks, which he shouldn't be doing."

"It's not his fault he's sick," she protested.

I agreed with her, it wasn't the pokémon's fault. It would be pretty simple to help him, too. After all, pokémon centers were free, but apparently, both the breeder of this scrawny growlithe and the store couldn't be bothered.

"No, but he could start a fire like that. If my mom saw him, she'd be livid."

"Oh, yeah, your mom's a breeder. What does she breed anyway?" Sara momentarily forgot the puppy.

"Anything anybody will pay her to do. Sometimes the professor from Hoenn would ask her to breed something for him. Mom's hoping that this one will too."

"Does she breed starters?" Sara asked.

"No, the Pokémon League is very protective over them. My mom does breed some of the rare ones, like endangered species and stuff. We actually have some eevees right now," I answered.

"I love eevees! Can we see them?"


	2. Loki: God of Mischief

**All right, y'all here's chapter 2. I've posted this a lot sooner than I anticipated... At any rate, I'll now be updating every Friday. **

Loki: God of Mischief

After Sara left, my mother decided to give me the third degree about my new "little friend." I could tell that she was even more excited that I'd made some friends than I was. She grilled me on my teachers, the other kids and what I did after school. Eventually, I got more than a little irritated with her and I ended up snapping at her.

I didn't feel too guilty about that, after all, she still had Rob to harass who had yet to return home and before she could get too defensive, one of the eevees decided to instigate a mass breakout. Of course, I got recruited to help track them all down. It took three hours the catch four eevee pups, but before we could, they ended up breaking three vases and left presents in a variety of sizes.

"So, when's this client of yours supposed to pick these guys up?" I asked irritably once we shut them all in separate kennels.

Mom sighed, "She was supposed to get them last week."

"Wait, she was from Hoenn? Does she know we've moved?" I asked.

"I told her when she dropped her two eevee off, and then I called the number she left with me. I think she just decided to abandon them all," Mom answered

"Didn't she leave a Trainer I.D. or something?"

"Apparently, it wasn't hers. Or if it was even real to begin with," my mother stated irritably.

"Then we're stuck with these guys."

"I'll find some place for them. Eevee are very popular as pets and battlers," Mom told me, "Besides, I thought you found them cute."

"Yeah, before that one," I pointed at a lighter colored pup, "decided to leave a few things in my room."

The pup in question only have me a big eyed look in response and despite my anger, I still found him cute. Though I wasn't about to admit it right now.

Mom looked at the eevee I indicated, "Well, that one's a bit of a handful. The others aren't as difficult as him."

I grunted in response. Honestly, I thought they were adorable until they were able to figure out how to get out of their little pen area and now I sort of just tolerate them.

Dad and Rob got home at about the same time and my mother soon grew distracted by asking him how his day went, but Rob didn't offer up much. The earlier eevee fiasco caused Mom to have to order out for tonight, so we had pizza. No one really had much to report. Rob and I don't enjoy telling out parents about the things we do and Dad had to do a tour of the Radio Tower; apparently it was boring. My father also doesn't particularly like the small fox-like dogs in our house so Mom and I didn't mention them.

All in all, this wasn't too bad of a start here in Johto. Of course, I wasn't about to mention this out loud, either. If I did, my mother would end up going into one of her, "Moms are always right," rants. She was the one that insisted that I would be the best suited here, though I have no idea why she would believe that.

As the weeks passed, I developed a bit of a routine. Go to school, spend the rest of the day with my friends, and then go home at whatever time my mom told me. I was actually beginning to act more like Rob, as he was hardly ever home either. Only difference is, he doesn't help at all with the pokémon Mom breeds when we are at home.

Just as I thought, my mother was able to find homes for all of the eevee except the little light tan one. He was just too wild for anybody to take him off our hands. At first, people thought the little shiny would be great in their homes, but as soon as anyone would try to take him, he'd turn into some sort of monster. He even peed on one lady.

Oddly enough, I was the only one that ended up liking him. Once we stopped trying to give him away, he even settled down a little. Now, he mostly has a bad habit of hiding and chewing on things. I was the one that named him Loki and Dad eventually assigned me to be his primary caregiver. Not only did that mean that I had to clean up after him, it also meant that I had to take him with me on the occasion that my parents got so tired of him that I'd have to take him out for his well being.

So, that's how I ended up in the park with my friends and an eevee with a behavioral problem. I actually liked it better here in the park than at the store. I've always liked spending some time outside and the park was way more peaceful than the bustling department store.

"You gonna use him for the Bug Catching Contest?" Connor pointed at Loki.

"Loki? No, I'd never get him to do any battle moves, let alone get him to help me catch something," I said.

"You can't get him to listen to you? How do you expect to be a passable pokémon trainer if you can't get your first pokémon to obey you?" he asked.

Over the past two months, I've learned that Connor is one of those rare, and more often than not irritating, people that won't allow you to get away with anything whatsoever.

"Look, I don't even have a poké ball for him, or a trainer I.D. card. He doesn't even listen to my mom, so I don't think anybody could train him," I snapped.

"What kind of thinking is that? Any pokémon can be trained, you just got to work with him," Connor shot back.

I sighed, "Connor, Loki is essentially the family pet. I don't even want to train him."

He just rolled his eyes and brought out his pikachu. Before yesterday, I didn't even know Connor had pokémon. I knew he had been a trainer a few years back, but I never even thought that he'd still have any.

Since Sara, Andrew and I weren't trainers; we couldn't participate in the contest, so we watched instead. There were plenty of caterpie and weedle around, but from listening to Connor, I knew that the only pokémon the contestants were interested in were scyther and pinsirs. Maybe even a venonat. Any others wouldn't get them very far.

Unfortunately, Connor didn't have much luck today. He kept running into weedles and out of desperation, he eventually captured a ledyba seconds before the contest ended. I guess he could take comfort in that his catch got him third place, but knowing Connor, he considered his day a loss.

"What are you going to do with her?" Sara asked him after the small awards ceremony.

Connor shrugged, "I don't have much of a use for her, so I guess I'll release her."

With a flash of red light, he let the bug pokémon out of her poké ball. She didn't appear to care much for Connor yet and turned away from him when she was released. Connor put her poké ball onto the ground and stepped on it with all his weight. The ball crumbled under him and the ledyba looked at him in surprise.

"Go on," Connor urged, "Get back into the grass."

He began to herd her back, but after a few moments, the pokémon seemed to realize that she had been freed. Once she did, she raced off.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Connor commented once the ledyba was out of sight.

"How?" Sara asked, "It's not like we had anything better to do."

"Besides," Andrew added, "I thought you liked this sort of thing. Catching pokémon and stuff," he clarified.

"Sure, but I can do better than that."

A shriek distracted us from our conversation. By now, I've gotten into the habit of looking for Loki when people cry out in surprise and my heart sank when I didn't find him next to me once again.

"Loki," I groaned and shot off towards the source of the shriek.

When I got there, I saw a middle aged woman throwing various things from a picnic basket at a quivering bush.

"Hey!" I shouted at her and the woman spun around to look at me, "What are you doing?"

"That little monster took off with the sandwiches! Is he yours?" she looked at me accusingly.

I had no idea if that was Loki inside the bush, but the way she described the thief as a "little monster," left little doubt. Sighing, I approached the bush, which had gone still after the woman stopped throwing food at it, and called out to Loki. He didn't respond immediately, but after a couple of minutes, he finally crawled out. He knew he was in trouble too, because he slunk to me close to the ground with what was left of the sandwiches in his mouth.

"Drop the, you!" the woman charged at him.

"Whoa, hold on, you're not going to get anything back if you scare him," I snapped at her.

I was right; Loki growled at her and started to back away.

"Stay!" I growled at him, and then held out my hand. "Come on, hand them over."

Loki whimpered at me and for a second, it looked like he was going to bolt back into the bushes. I glared at him and hoped for his sake that he'd figure out that if he did, he'd spend the rest of the day in his kennel.

Fortunately, he did seem to realize that I wasn't playing and dropped them on the ground. The woman snatched them up with a cry of disgust. I looked at the sandwiches and saw that Loki had eaten a bit of all of them.

"Sorry about that," I told her.

She glared at me, "That monster needs to be kept in a ball before he does something vicious."

"He stole some sandwiches," I said angrily, "It's not like he bit anybody."

The woman only snorted, then gathered what was left of her things and left. I looked down at my supposedly vicious pokémon; he was looking up at me as innocently as he could.

"Yeah, I'm not buying it. Come on, we're going home and you're sleeping outside tonight," Loki's ears dropped when he heard that and I had to turn away before I could feel sorry for him.

That's the thing about him; despite my dislike of Loki when he had been younger, he had always found a way to get to me. Whether it be his puppy eyes, cuddling up against me, or anything else that he considered adorable. We both knew he wasn't really going to sleep outside, but I wasn't going to say that to him.

Andrew and Connor were both snickering as we walked to my house. Oh yes, that was so hilarious. I was going to have to stop having Loki around those two, they're a bad influence.

"Why don't we go through the Underground? It'll be faster, your house is on the other side of the city and we could save some time, Rylie," Sara said.

I bit my lip. As soon as my parents had heard of a place called the "Underground," they had forbidden both me and Rob from going there. After all, who knew what sort of ruffians lurked there? Seriously, I knew that people went down there all the time, but if my parents found out I went down there… well, I'm not really sure what would happen.

I didn't want to tell my friends that I was afraid of going down because of my parents, so I lied.

"Aren't there trainers down there? I don't want them to think I'll battle because of Loki," I said uneasily.

As soon as I said that, I actually started to worry that it would happen. I may be angry with him right now, but I didn't want my eevee to get hurt. Loki probably couldn't do a simple tackle.

"Just tell them you don't even have an I.D.," Connor told me, "You can't battle someone without an I.D."

"You can't?"

"Well, you could probably force someone to battle, but it's not like they'd get anything out of it. If they won, how much money would you have to give them? What sort of challenge would you be?"

Too bad Connor couldn't reassure me about my other concern. I couldn't think of any other reason not to go down, so I ended up following my friends. It turns out that the Underground was pretty cool. There were some good shops and stalls and I ended up spending most of my dismal allowance of a haircut for Loki. He seemed to like it and even settled down a little.

Connor was challenged to a few battles and he won all of them. He was good, I had to admit. Part of me was hoping that he'd lose a couple so his ego would get knocked down a few pegs. Another part was secretly impressed.

We were going to sit for a few minutes to rest our legs, but my eevee decided that we weren't going to do that. Once again, I found myself chasing after him as he shot down a narrow corridor, growling all the way. I wondered why on earth I even take him with me if all he does is get me in trouble.

Loki skidded to a stop before a door at the end of the hallway and started snarling at it. Frustrated, I scooped him up and tried to carry him away from the door, but Connor stopped me.

"Wait, I think he found something."

"Found what?" I asked hotly, "A locked door? Will you please move? I just want to go home and shut him outside."

I waited for him to get out of the way, but Connor instead brushed past me and tried the knob on the door.

"I think I can get past the lock," he grunted.

"Why? What's the point of breaking into a room we know nothing about?" I rubbed my eyes in irritation.

"Because we know that Loki doesn't like whatever is in here," he answered as he began to jam his I.D. card between the door and the frame.

"Connor, I don't think this is a good idea," Sara said uneasily, "What if we get caught? Besides, my parents are going to be angry if I get home late."

"Yeah, that and how are you gonna break into this based off of Loki? He's not exactly trustworthy," Andrew added.

"Then you all can go home," Connor said through clenched teeth, "Maybe if Loki had stolen something, or if he was just playing, then yeah, there's not reason to check this door out. Think about it though, when has he ever gotten so upset about something?"

I looked down at Loki and saw that Connor was right. He wasn't struggling to get free or anything, but he was growling with his little teeth bared and his ears back. I had never seen him so uptight about anything.

A snap distracted me from Loki and I looked up and saw Connor entering through the door. The rest of us looked at each other for a moment, silently debating whether we should follow him or not. Loki made my choice for me, however, as he jumped out of my arms and slunk after Connor.

Groaning and wishing that I had left him at home today, I followed Loki and Connor. However, almost as soon as I went inside, Connor grabbed my arm and pulled me behind some boxes. He did the same with Sara and Andrew after he passed Loki to me. I was going to ask him why he was being so rough, but before I could; he mimed for me to be quiet and traced an "R" over the front of his shirt.

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but the others seemed to. Both Sara and Andrew grew pale and Andrew actually bolted out the door to presumably run home.

"Connor," Sara whispered quietly, "Maybe we should leave too. R-rylie and I aren't even trainers."

"Relax," he hissed back, "I am and besides, it's already been proven that Team Rocket can't handle a couple of kids, so why should that change now?"

Once he mentioned Team Rocket, I grew just about as frightened as Sara. I'd only heard of them back in Hoenn, seeing as Team Rocket didn't have any sort of foothold there, but the stories were still a little scary. These people would just kidnap pokémon and hold people, even entire towns, hostage. I wasn't going to ditch anyone like Andrew, but I still didn't want to be here.

"I don't think we should be here, either," I whispered, "They might try to take-"

Loki wasn't in my arms anymore. I honestly felt like I was going to cry now; if anything happened to him, I don't really know how I'd handle it.

"He's gone!" I whispered loudly.

"Again? Can't you hold on to him?" Connor snapped at me.

"I'm sorry, but I can't exactly change that now!" I shot back, "We're going to have to go after him. I can't leave him here!"

I peered around the boxes to see if I could spot him, but the "room" was much bigger than we'd anticipated. It turns out; this was more like a base than anything else. We were in a warehouse type area with boxes laid about its entirety and it appeared that Loki had disappeared into thin air.

"He probably went that way," Connor nudged me and pointed at a hallway that led deeper into this hideout.

"How do you figure that?" Sara asked.

Before he could answer, we all had to duck behind the boxes again as two Team Rocket members walked out from behind another pile of boxes. Two red "R"s were displayed across their black uniforms and we all held our breath as they strode right past us and into the hallway Connor had indicated.

"'Cause I don't think that some boxes would get him to act like that," Connor whispered once the two gang members had disappeared from view.

"Then how would he know anything bad was going on if it wasn't in the boxes?" I asked, "He can't smell that far."

"Sixth sense, pokémon have that sort of thing," was all he said and made his way to the hallway.

I felt like I had a sixth sense right now, and it was telling me to stay away from the very hallway that Connor was heading towards. However, that would mean possibly leaving Loki and I couldn't do that.

With a sigh, I followed and heard Sara do the same behind me. The hallway was a bright white, medical looking corridor. The type that would be more suited to a hospital, not a notorious gang hideout. Connor was leading the way as quietly as he could and me and Sara tried to imitate him. To me, it felt like we were a small herd of tauros and was just as loud as them too. Though, whether that is because we were actually being loud, or that it was due to my paranoia, I can't say.

The doors that lined the hallway had large, square windows set in them and as we passed them, Connor and I quickly looked into them for a small fox-dog like pokémon. The farther we went down the hallway, the more my heart sank. I had hoped that we would find Loki quickly and I knew that the longer we were here, the more likely we, or Loki, would get caught. Perhaps even all of us would get caught if we were here much longer.

It was the third-to-last door on the right that I finally heard him. Loki was scratching and whimpering from behind it. I'm not sure how he got behind it to begin with, but that didn't matter right now. Quickly and as quietly as I could, I opened the door and pulled the eevee towards me. I moved to shut it, but Connor stopped me.

"You don't want to see what he got so excited about?" he asked me.

No, I could honestly say that I didn't want to see what Loki had found, because whatever it was had apparently scared the adventure right out of him. Presently, Loki had burrowed into my chest and his small body was shivering horribly.

However, before I could protest going inside, Connor had already entered. I couldn't leave him either. Not after he had helped me find Loki. Of course, he may have done that simply to further explore the base, but he had helped me all the same.

So, I followed him— though Loki protested for me in the form of a few whimpers— and found Connor staring at the large room in shock. I soon joined him in my own surprise. Cages lined all the walls and the only break in them was the space for the door. Inside nearly every cage were pokémon, all very, very rare. Charmanders, eevee, pikachu and many more with all of their evolutions present. I could hardly take it in.

The amazing pokémon collection aside, I couldn't understand why Loki was so frightened. It was almost like he had run into a gastly or something.

"I think we should leave now," Sara whispered.

"We still don't know why Loki wanted to come down here," Connor responded absently.

He moved further into the room and as I once again followed him, I saw that this room was more of a lab than a storage room for pokémon. Lab tables were in the center of the room surrounded by medical equipment and tanks that were filled with an ugly, yellow liquid.

Before we could get any farther, the sound of what apparently was the second door into this room unlocking had us scattering to hide behind anything we could. Loki and I ducked behind one of the weird tanks. I was lucky that the liquid was thick enough to make my form seem more like an undefined shadow than that of a person.

"Do we have anything Rinaldo wants us to shift?" a female voice said as a few Rockets came into the room. I couldn't tell how many there were exactly and I wasn't too eager to risk getting seen to find out.

"Ah… yeah, he wants another togepi. Some client o' his wants one for his kid," a male voice answered the woman. The man sounded like he wasn't the type to be found in a lab. He sounded like he'd be more welcome as a bouncer, or an enforcer.

The woman, on the other hand, sounded far more sophisticated than her companion. She even had a foreign accent that I couldn't place.

"What are we supposed to use? All we have here are the pokémon we've already changed. Should we use them or….?" Another man, who sounded a bit nasally, asked the other two.

"Why would we use the subjects we've already shifted, Reynolds?" the woman snapped," Rinaldo hasn't asked us to shift any of them and in any case, we do have another subject. As it turns out, Rinaldo wasn't too happy when you approached the authorities," she simpered.

"Th-the authorities? I didn't go to the police, what are you talking about?" the far less intimidating man asked uneasily.

"We got people watchin' you," the enforcer barked, "And we know you went and squealed to the cops."

"N-no! I didn't tell anyone anything! Who would even believe this?"

The woman sighed, "Reynolds, there's no need to lie. We already know everything."

"They didn't even believe me!" Reynolds cried, "They thought I was insane, and then laughed when I kept going!"

"Rinaldo doesn't care, Reynolds," the woman told him, "All that matters is that you tried to get out."

"B-but—"

"Think of it this way," the woman continued, "What would have happened if the police had believed you? Rinaldo simply wishes to eliminate any threats to our organization. You understand, don't you?"

A struggle ensued and I guessed that the enforcer had gotten a hold of Reynolds. I didn't know what to think about this. I knew I was as scared as I ever could be at this point, but I didn't know what these people were talking about. What I did know, however, as that I wasn't too eager to see some gangster killed for snitching on his boss.

Reynolds had apparently been gagged because all his protests were now muffled. Now, it sounded like the Rocket enforcer had forced Reynolds onto one of the lab tables. There was the sound of buckles hitting table after that, then I heard someone approach the tank I was hiding behind.

I had to stop myself from abandoning my hiding place and kept completely still. For his part, Loki hadn't moved from my chest the entire time we had been in this room. I was immensely grateful for that, considering my desire to not get captured by what are probably murderous Team Rocket members.

The clapping of high heels stopped before the tank and I heard the woman fiddling with it for a moment. There was a hissing noise as I assumed the woman had siphoned off some of the think, yellow liquid from the tank. Once the woman was through with it, she approached the lab table that presumably held Reynolds.

"Have you ever had a chance to watch this process?" she asked.

The enforcer only grunted that he hadn't.

"Well then, consider yourself lucky. Hardly any of the grunts ever see this. In fact, hardly anyone in Team Rocket in its entirety ever witnesses this process. A shame really since it's quite fascinating," the woman said thoughtfully.

The sounds of a keyboard filled the room. Reynolds seemed to have resigned himself to whatever was going to happen to him because I could no longer hear his muffled cries.

"It's unfortunate that you decided to betray Team Rocket, Reynolds. You were much faster at this than I am. But, I suppose it can't be helped," she continued, "At least you can please one of our clients now."

Reynolds let out an agonized moan and that was what scared me most of all. I couldn't see what was happening to him, but I could hear his continuous cries of pain and some very ominous snapping and cracking noises. It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but it felt much longer. Finally, it all stopped and everything went quiet.

"Well, what did you think?" the woman asked cheerily, "I think he's come out quite nice."

The enforcer didn't respond.

"Mmm, don't be alarmed by the nausea, there is an acquired taste for shifting. I remember that I hadn't enjoyed my first time either."

One of the cages along the walls was opened then slammed shut.

"Come, we should inform Rinaldo that his problem has been dealt with," they left through the door they entered from and I heard the lock click into place.

None of us moved for the longest time, and it was Connor that first left his hiding place. He approached cage that sounded like it had been used by the Rockets.

"Connor, let's go. I don't want to be here anymore," Sara whispered.

"Look at what they did to him," he breathed and ignored Sara completely.

"I don't want to look! I want to leave," she cried.

"Sara, shut up before someone hears you!" Connor snapped, "Come here, you won't believe what happened to the guy."

My curiosity got the better of me and despite Sara's objections, I approached the cage. At first, I didn't understand what I was looking at. There was a pokémon inside, nothing else. However, I recognized the pokémon as a togepi a few seconds later and remembered that only ten minutes before, those Team Rocket members had been complaining that they didn't have one. A togepi appears, only two of the three Rockets end up leaving the room, some talk about shifting….

"They—How? How does that happen?" I asked with my brain now numb.

"I think it's that yellow crap," Connor answered.

"We need to leave," I told him, "They could come back and…," I trailed off and hoped that I didn't have to finish my sentence.

I could now understand why Loki was so frightened of this room, and I wanted nothing more than to leave this place entirely. It gave me a feeling of both dread and familiarity, though I can't say I knew why it made me feel the latter.

"Yeah," was all Connor said before he again took the lead and directed us back to the large warehouse-type room.

Within minutes, we found ourselves back within the crowds in the Underground. I could hardly believe that we had gotten out without getting caught and I kept looking behind us to make sure no Rockets were following. No one spoke as we walked to my house on the outskirts of the city and we barely said goodbye as I went inside.


	3. The Rave

**This isn't a review based story by any means, but I still like constructive criticism. I'm writing this to get my writing style seen and I want to know what complete strangers think of it. Tell me what you think. I know what I think, but that doesn't really help me with anything.**

**The Rave...  
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I couldn't go anywhere for the next week. My parents had been pretty mad that I got home so late, but I didn't mind the punishment too much. I kept thinking that I'd run into a Team Rocket enforcer any time I went out. They had to know that someone had infiltrated their base. Connor had broken the door…. I couldn't imagine that the gang wouldn't be one the lookout for the intruders.

Even Loki seemed to have been affected by what happened. He didn't leave my room for any reason except for his outdoor business since we'd gotten home two days ago. I think he hid under my bed while I was at school and as soon as I got back, he glued himself to me.

I didn't leave my room much either. Since I was still a bit freaked out over what happened, I didn't want to take the chance of my parents noticing me acting weird. The last thing I wanted was for them to find out I went into the Underground, let alone was inside Team Rocket's base.

Connor suggested that we keep quiet about what happened. His reasoning was that since the police hadn't believed a Team Rocket member, the chance that they would believe three sixteen-year-olds was non-existant. I actually agreed with him on this, and we both had to convice Sara that telling anyone would be a bad idea.

I had to be honest, though. My real reasoning on silence was that I was afraid of Team Rocket hearing about three kids talking about their _fantastic_ shifting process and then take the steps to have us silenced completely. Either way, I figured that no one would be hearing about this any time soon.

It was three days after the Team Rocket incident that Connor decided it would be a great idea to throw pebbles at my window at three in the morning. Well, there wasn't any way for me to actually tell it was him when he first started, so he scared the crap out of me at first. Loki shot up like a bullet and began to growl at the window. I had to get him quiet before he woke anyone up.

Once I opened my window and discovered him, I wanted to throw something back at Connor. Of course, he didn't seemed fazed at all by my irritation and began whisper shouting at me.

"Put your shoes on and grab a flashlight," he demanded.

"What?" I was completely at a loss here, "Why?"

"I want to get some evidence on that crap that Team Rocket is doing."

"I thought we weren't going to go to anyone about that!" I exclaimed in disbelief. It was his idea….

"So I'm a bleeding heart, what does it matter? Do you really want them to keep doing that to people?"

On one hand, I really didn't care what they were doing. Reynolds had been a Rocket, didn't he get what he deserved? However, there was a small twinge of empathy that I felt towards him. He did try to get out after all. We weren't cops, though, and I don't even have pokémon that could battle and there was the small problem of us being a two-man infiltrator team against an entire gang…..

"What can we do, Connor?"

He held up a digital camera, "All we have to do is get a reason for the cops and they'll do the rest."

"Where are the other two? Why me?" I groaned.

He shrugged, "You are the only one that didn't turn me down flat out, so do you want to come or not?"

I could honestly say that I did not _want_ to go. However, if I didn't, chances are that Connor would just go by himself. He was certainly dressed like he was planning on doing so with or without me.

"Give me a minute," I sighed and shut the window.

Quickly, I dressed in something similar to what Connor was wearing. A black shirt, dark jacket and some dark blue pants since I despise, and therefore don't own, black. I also decided to add a hat to my ensemble considering that my auburn hair might attract attention. Once I finished dressing, I carefully began to sneak out.

My parents' room is right next to the staircase and, because said staircase creaks, this may be difficult. I remembered overhearing my brother mentioning to one of his friends how he sneaks out, but I can't remember for the life of me which stairs he skips over.

Just as I was about to give up and wing it, Rob himself came up behind me. He tapped me on the shoulder and I had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out. Rob sniggered at the sight and I glared at him.

"So," he asked, looking me up and down, "are we going to a rave or something?"

No, I'll be infiltrating a near legendary crime organization's base to help my idiot friend get some pics of their science fair.

I couldn't say that, though. My brother may avoid me like I have the plague, but he wouldn't let his little sister get into something like this. At least, I think he wouldn't.

"I guess," I said instead.

"Cool, by the way," he said as he passed me to go to whatever party he himself was sneaking off to, "it's the fourth and seventh step that creaks."

He then proceeded to melt into the shadows like a freaking haunter, leaving me to wonder if my brother had really just helped me sneak out. Then, I remembered that James Bond was outside so I shrugged my confusion off and made my way out.

Connor was waiting for me on the sidewalk and he shot me a glare as I approached him. I only shrugged at him. Hey, he was the one jolting me out of sleep at three a.m. The way I see it, _I'm_ the one that should be irritated. Which I am; irritated I mean.

Anyway, Connor led us towards the Underground. I decided to leave Loki, seeing as not only is he not in his right mind at the moment, but he's also prone to becoming excessively annoying in times of peril. Not that I've had many times of peril…. Yes, I left him at home and we made it to the southern entrance in no time. The only problem we had was dodging a couple of cops doing their rounds.

My watch said we arrived at the Rocket base at four in the morning. The door looked exactly like we had left it. Which freaked me out, by the way. The entrance to _their freaking hideout_ could not have been neglected to the point that the Rockets have failed to notice a broken lock.

"I don't know if this is such a good idea, Connor. I mean, I know it's a bad idea. In fact, I've known this was a bad idea since you got me out of bed," I rambled, "They have to know that we broke in. They didn't even fix the lock. Doesn't that seem like a bad sign?" I finished.

Connor only watched me rant until I ran out of breath to continue. Once I did, he turned away from me.

"You can go then, I'm not going to force you into this or anything," he finally told me. He refused to look at me.

The thing about Connor is that he isn't actually trying to guilt me into anything. Yeah, he wants me to go with him; I think he's even scared to go by himself. However, as I've learned to see through his bravado, I've learned that my friend isn't the type to force anyone into anything. Sara and I were the ones that were angry with Andrew for ditching us. Connor just treated him like the whole thing didn't happen.

I bit my lip. This was actually infuriating when I thought about it. He _wasn't _guilting me into anything, yet I felt guilty for wanting to go to bed and pretending this night never happened. I couldn't leave him here to do this by himself. I knew he would go with or without me, so that only left one option and I didn't like it at all.

"Fine, I'm coming," I told him quietly.

His only response was to push the door open.

We did the same routine as last time. Hide behind boxes; wait for any Rockets—there weren't any—to leave and sneak into the sterile hallway.

"Don't you think it's weird that there isn't anyone here?" I asked quietly, "You'd think they'd have night guys or something."

"Maybe they don't," was all I got.

Connor led us to the very room we had witnessed that shift. I don't know why he led us to the same one because there were probably others, but I didn't want to question him this time. For now, I was content to follow his insane plan so that we could leave as soon as possible.

He got a picture of everything in the room. The cages, the pokémon, the lab equipment and he made sure to capture any Rocket logos he could with the aforementioned items. I was only the cheerleader in this mission, so I kept back and let him do what he needed.

It felt like we had been there for an eternity. Connor took pictures of everything in every imaginable combination, and I began to get increasingly nervous. I felt like we were going to be caught at any moment. The longer we spent here, the more chance…. It felt exactly like last time. Well, not exactly. It almost felt worse, not that I knew what could happen to us.

"Are you done yet?" I snapped at him.

Of course he didn't respond, he probably thought that I was beginning to get too twitchy. Connor just seemed so relaxed, like he knew that there was no way we could get caught.

I soon learned that it was all a front. The moment we heard voices, he spun around frantically towards the door and had gone as white as a sheet. I had to admit that I wasn't much better as I scrambled to hide under a cloth covered lab table.

There was no way for me to check if Connor had managed to find a place to hide because the voices decided to enter the same room we were in.

"Tell me why we have to search the base again?" a high, male voice asked his partner.

The other Rocket grunted, "We were told to. Is there really any better reason?"

"Humph, don't you think we have the right to know why we're here at four-thirty in the morning?" the first complained.

"No, we aren't paid to know things. Maybe one day when we've moved up, but who's gonna explain anything to a couple of grunts? Just stop your whining and search the room," his companion ordered.

The first man grumbled under his breath as they began to look about the room. I could honestly say that as this moment, I have never been more terrified in my entire life. There was no way the pair wouldn't find me; I had chosen the most obvious hiding place in the history of concealment.

It isn't fair, I didn't want to go, and this wasn't my idea. Why was I in this situation? Why didn't I just tell Connor no? I could have. I should have, but I couldn't leave him. This was his entire genius plan, and now I had to take the fall with him.

A large, meaty hand shot into my hiding place and clamped onto my arm with the force of a constricting arbok. I didn't even have the chance to scream before I found myself face-to-face with a hideous, muscular man. He was grinning at me like a gengar.

"Come here, Wilson. This runt's the reason you've lost your beauty sleep," he said triumphantly.

He shook me roughly and hauled me over to a stocky, and a tad less ugly, man.

This man, who I assume was the one complaining, looked at me gleefully.

"I think there's a promotion in for us. I can't believe you tried to break into Team Rocket's hideout," he directed toward me.

Fear raced through me and I desperately wished that I could just will it away. I wanted to be strong, defiant. I wanted to tell this idiot that I hadn't _tried_ to break in. I had broken in, or rather Connor did, but I wasn't about to blow his hiding place here too. Most of all, however, I wanted to tear away from these piloswine and run all the way home.

What I wanted didn't matter at this point, though. I wasn't strong enough to get away and I wasn't daring enough to taunt my captors. Instead, I whimpered and only made token squirms against the man holding me. The only good thing that I could think of about this situation was that my appearance had distracted these guys from searching the room any further.

The men were both leering at me, but it was the smaller one that finally spoke after they had stopped laughing at me.

"Well, it looks like we get to take you in for a check-up. The doc's gonna be thrilled to see ya," he informed me.

They then proceeded to drag me out of the room with the smaller, whiny man leading his companion and myself down the hallway to another one of the rooms. Apparently, I had been right in assuming that many of these rooms had the same purpose. This room was almost exactly the same as the one we had left. The only difference was that this room didn't have nearly as many Pokémon as the other one.

I never caught a glimpse of the woman when I had last been here, but when this "Doc" person turned toward me, I immediately knew that they were the same person.

The doctor was a very imposing woman. She was tall, had raven black hair, and her striking blue eyes were filled with cruel amusement. She didn't seem angry that I was here. In fact, she actually seemed happy.

"Hello, we knew you'd visit us again," she said in a warm voice. However, her eyes had a predatory gleam in them that belied her tone.

"Wait, there were intruders here before?" the larger man asked from behind me.

The doctor's eyes snapped from me and settled onto my captors. It was almost mesmerizing to witness how quickly her facial expression changed. The cruel amusement she held for me immediately changed to a hard, cold glare.

"Did you find any others with her?" she snapped.

"Oh, ah, no," the whiner said quickly.

"Well, we didn't exactly finish sweeping the room we found this one in," the man holding me shook me roughly for emphasis.

If possible, the woman's gaze hardened even more.

"What?" she questioned quietly.

The smaller man stepped in front of me and his dumb partner.

"We thought that it would be best to bring you the girl immediately, Miss," he said even faster than before.

The doctor stared at him for several long moments. The whiner began to squirm uncomfortably under her piercing glare.

"Well?" she snapped angrily, "Go look! Sweep the base again! This girl did not break that lock by herself, find her companions," she ordered the man in front of her.

"Y-yes, ma'am! Sorry," he stuttered and almost ran out of the room.

"You!" she snapped at my captor, "Go outside and wait by the door."

He released me and, without addressing the doctor, did as she ordered. He didn't rush out like his friend, though. Apparently, he wasn't bright enough to be afraid of this woman and the way he slowly shuffled out of the room only strengthened my opinion.

She continued to glare for a few moments after the door shut, as if the man outside could still feel the searing cold of her stare. It was almost like I had snapped my fingers under her nose from the way the doctor snapped out of her anger. She turned to me and smiled in her false, warm way.

"Now it's just us girls."

There was a pause, like she wanted me to contribute to our wonderful conversation but I was caught in fear and defiance at the same time. I didn't want to give her the pleasure, yet I was also too scared to even make a sound anyway.

"Now then, you must know that Team Rocket cannot tolerate this intrusion. It is important for us to maintain our very private business dealings," she sounded like she was scolding me for breaking curfew or something.

I still didn't say anything.

"You understand that we cannot risk you speaking about what you saw here, do you not? Perhaps the authorities will think you to be some hoodlum, but if our clients hear of you talking about Team Rocket, they will become very paranoid and terminate our contracts. We can't have that," she said softly.

I had a terrible feeling that I knew what was about to happen. There's no way for me to say if it was fear or bravery that spurred me into action, but I made a break for it anyway. The woman made no move to stop me, but I guess she really didn't have to.

Almost as soon as I had swung open the door, the ugly, lumbering man was there to grab me. He may not be the brightest guy, but he sure reacted fast. I was then dragged back inside, and the man stayed in the room.

"So, you know what's going coming to you, yes?" she wasn't angry that I tried to escape, not in the slightest. She seemed excited instead.

I kept up the silent treatment, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Well, get her strapped to the table, then," she directed sharply.

I had no trouble finding the effort to struggle this time. However, I may as well have been not moving seeing as the man merely threw me over his back and carried me over like I was a sack of potatoes. He was able to get me strapped onto the table with ease and even laughed at me as I tried to break out of them.

"Outside," the doctor directed behind him.

The man almost looked like he was pouting as he turned away from me and left the room. The doctor them proceeded to ignore me completely as she prepared to destroy my life. I'm ashamed to admit that I was crying instead of couragously staying silent or yelling at her defiantly 'til the end.

I couldn't believe that this was happening to me. I should be asleep right now, not here. I wanted to go back in time and keep from opening my window. What does it matter to me what Team Rocket was doing? It hadn't been affecting me or Connor, so why had we come back? I don't even know what to think about him, I was caught between feeling relieved that he might have a chance to get away and angry that he'd gotten me in this mess.

She returned with the ugly, yellow liquid, but instead of immediately jabbing me with a needle and pumping that crap into me, she put the flask into some port and stepped up to a computer.

"I'd tell you not to worry, but I'm afraid that this will be painful," she informed me as she typed away.

There was no way for me to get out of this and I knew it. I'd stopped struggling and, though I couldn't stop crying, I kept silent.

The doctor stopped typing suddenly and I looked at her to see that she was pursing her lips.

"Hmm, looks like we have no requests today. Ah well, we'll just see what you're compatible with," she said thoughtfully.

The good doctor then walked out of my line of vision, however she returned only seconds later. I felt a sharp pain in the crook of my elbow then felt a gentle pinching sensation.

"You remember Reynolds's experience, yes? We weren't very happy with him. Of course, we aren't too happy with you and your little friends either, but you are far easier to deal with... Just a bit of blood so I can analyze it," she chatted.

She didn't take much before she removed the needle. My small test tube was put into another port and she returned to typing.

I'd stopped thinking by this point. There wasn't much of a use for it right now.

"How curious!" she exclaimed suddenly, "There is only one match with your DNA, dear. Mmm, Reynolds would have known more about this, but I can hardly ask _him, _now can I? she chuckled.

More typing followed and I began to hate that sound. Why couldn't this have gone faster? It was almost like she was torturing me further with all the waiting.

This time, the needle was put in the top of my wrist. The sensation of my blood being taken had been horrible, but this felt worse. It wasn't painful, but just the thought of this woman pumping some yellow crap inside me, that I desperately didn't want, was terrible. It was thick and gross and I wanted to throw up.

She patted my head, "You're handling this much better than that idiot," she praised.

I didn't hear anything else she said as my body erupted in agony. It felt like my skin was being ripped open, my bones breaking and moving and my muscles realigning themselves. I don't know if I was screaming, but there was a large chance that I was. The only thing I could hear was a strange roaring in my ears. I couldn't see, feel or smell anything either. Not that it mattered anyway because I soon stopped thinking too.


	4. Teaching a Rookie

**Alright, this is the very first time I've ever written a guy in first person. I would love it if anyone would tell me if I've written him um... dudely enough. That and I'm a bit concerned that he isn't distinct enough from Rylie because they both tend to have similar traits. **

**Teaching a Rookie**

It was easy to escape from that base. As soon as I saw an opening, I went for it. Shame filled me at the thought of leaving Rylie, but there wasn't anything I could do for her. I hadn't brought any pokémon with me even though I _knew_ there was a chance that I would need one.

I might not be able to get back inside now. Not after the Rockets had captured Rylie. They were probably crawling all over that base now. They might even relocate after this…. No, maybe not, they have a strong foothold here. At least, I hope they do. The Rockets had to; I have to get Rylie out.

What was I going to say to people? There's no way I can go get here soon, none of my pokémon are strong enough to take them all on. Not yet. Until then people were going to notice she was gone. Her family was sure to. Damn, I'm such an idiot, they just moved here and everything and I'm the jerk that got Rylie captured by a gang. She was maybe even worse off than captured.

I didn't want to think about what would happen if they changed her. That would mean that there wasn't anything I could do for her and I wasn't about to accept that. She was the one that didn't want to go. She was the one that told me to forget about this. She even warned me about a freaking trap. Rylie had been right about everything too. Now she was the one that got caught.

Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I started to walk home. There was nothing I could do right now except start up my training again. I didn't bother trying to hide from any cops as I walked home. There was no point. It figures, though, that I was able to walk all the way home without anyone seeing me. The universe seems happy to laugh at me right now.

My mom didn't even get up from all the noise I was making as I went to my room. It seems like I was to get away with everything tonight. I reached my hand in my coat pocket to bring out the only thing that went right tonight.

The only problem was there wasn't a camera in my coat pocket.

I screwed my eyes shut and tried to think of when I dropped it. Rylie had gotten caught, they dragged her out of the room and I bolted a few minutes later. I had felt it banging me in the hip as I flew for the door, but I heard someone coming for me so I dove for a pile of boxes…. I remember hearing something clatter on the ground. I didn't even think about it at the time.

Great, so we went there for nothing. We went there so that I could get Rylie caught by psychopaths. I had to stop myself from throwing the closest thing from me into the wall. My mom actually would wake up and I didn't have to energy to explain anything to her right now. I don't really have the energy for anything.

There was no point in changing out of my clothes. It wasn't like I was going to sleep. Instead, I put a pillow over my eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.

I let the phone ring for a good fifteen seconds before I picked it up. There were only a few people that would call me at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning and since one of them was currently sitting in a Rocket base, that only left two.

"Hello?" I asked irritably.

"Connor, what did you and Rylie do last night?" Sara demanded.

I guess her parents have noticed she's gone already. Sara would be the first person they'd go to. They didn't really like me and Drew, me in particular. Sara, though, was the one that went over to Rylie's house the most and I think they considered themselves best friends or something. Her parents probably figured she'd know something before Drew or I would.

That didn't matter right now. Rylie was gone and no one was going to believe what really happened. Sara might, in fact she would, but now wasn't the time to tell her. She would freak out and go to someone. Someone that would think we're crazy. Or worse, that I'd been the one to make Rylie disappear.

It didn't help that I really had made that happen.

"I didn't do anything last night," I said flatly, "But Rylie might have a different story for you."

"Connor, I know you wanted to go back to that stupid hideout and I know that you asked Rylie to go with you," Sara said forcefully.

"Yeah, I did want to go and I did ask Rylie. She said no and I went home. That's it."

"You would have gone by yourself," she accused, "and she would never have let that happen. Just tell me what you did, Connor," she begged.

"There's nothing to tell," I said through my teeth, "Why don't you go grill Rylie?"

That was a pretty low blow, but I had to deflect as much attention from myself as I can. Rylie can't be helped if I get accused of something.

"Her parents called mine and told them she was gone!" she cried, "And I think you know something about it."

It stung a bit to hear one of my friends accuse me of something like this. She was making it sound like I had dragged Rylie off into the forest and offed her.

"Really? Why is that, Sara? For the last time, I don't know anything about Rylie and I think you're just upset that she did something without telling you," I said angrily.

"Connor, this is serious! Rylie is _missing_. No one knows where she is and she isn't answering her phone. The only thing I'm upset about right now is the fact that no one knows what's happened to my best friend. No one except you, apparently," Sara was yelling by now.

I let out a long breath. There was no way I could do this. Sara knew, it was obvious she wasn't just suspicious, she knew. There was no lying to her now; she wasn't going to stop until I told her what happened.

"Fine," I said quietly.

"Wh-what?" she sniffled.

"Fine," I repeated loudly, "I'll tell you, but it isn't going to be over the phone. Come over here."

She was about to say something, but I hung up before she could. I didn't want to talk anymore and I knew she was going to ask question after question over the phone and we wouldn't get anywhere like that. Sara was going to come over eventually, so I went back to staring at the back of my pillow.

I knew I needed to think of what I was going to say to her, but I couldn't focus. Besides, I usually do better if I improvise; usually.

Some time later, I heard someone ringing my doorbell urgently. It was a good thing my mom was at work, or else she'd be pretty mad at Sara. I dragged myself from bed and slowly made my way to the front door. The ringing didn't let up, not even when I started to turn the deadbolt. When I did get the door open, Sara forced herself into my house and flew into the living room.

I followed slowly.

"No one knows anything about this?" I asked her once I was in the room.

"About what? Tell me what happened," she demanded.

"About you being here."

Sara's jaw tightened, "No, no one even knows that I think you know what happened."

"Good," I said and let out a breath I didn't even know I'd been holding.

"Connor! What happened?" she cried.

"All right, calm down. You were right, I did want to go back to that base and I did ask Rylie," I told her.

"Yeah, you already said that," she snapped.

"I know, Sara. Be quiet. Anyway, she didn't want to go, but she eventually gave in and we went back to the Rocket base."

"Why, Connor? What's wrong with you? Why couldn't you just forget about it?"

"I didn't force her to go," I said defensively, "Anyway, how could we let them keep doing what they were…doing? It's wrong."

"But it isn't our problem, or it wasn't until now," she muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I can guess what happened. She got caught, didn't she?"

"Yes," I answered quietly.

"Why weren't you going to say anything?" she exclaimed, "Were you just abandoning her?"

"No! I didn't want you to freak out so I didn't want to tell you. I'm going to get her out, I just have to do a few things," I explained.

"You were afraid I was going to say something," she stated.

"How are you able to read me so well?" I laughed sadly.

"I've known you since we were five. I'm not going to say anything, Connor. I know that no one will believe us."

"They would have if I hadn't dropped the damn camera," I said angrily.

Sara must have not known what to say because it was quiet after I said that. Or she may have been agreeing with and blaming me. Either way, we were left to our own thoughts for a while.

"I want to help," she said suddenly.

I sighed; I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I didn't know how Sara could help.

"How?" I voiced my thoughts.

"You could teach me to be a trainer. Twelve pokémon are better than six," she stated.

"Twelve well trained pokémon. You'll be a rookie trainer with no badges and no battle experience. I'm not saying that I'm a master or anything, but I think I'll do better on my own," I told her bluntly.

"She's my friend too, Connor," Sara said quietly.

"I know that, but I'm not going to bring along a rookie. You could cause more problems."

"Yes, just like you did last night," she snapped, "Why didn't you bring a party with you?"

I didn't answer her. There was nothing to say. I had those same thoughts, so it wasn't like I could deny anything.

"I'm sorry," Sara finally said, "It was stupid what you guys did, but that doesn't mean I need to blame you. Rylie didn't have to go."

"Yeah well, it's not like you weren't right about what you said. There are a lot of things I could have done to keep this from happening. Not going there to begin with for starters," I shrugged.

"You can't change what happened, Connor."

There was another long silence. I began to absently pick at the hole on the side of the couch cushion while Sara stared off into space. She didn't look too good. I probably look worse, but that doesn't really matter. It was probably unfair of me not to allow her to help. Rylie really was her best friend and it was obvious that Sara didn't like having her gone.

"If I don't think you're ready by the time I want to go, then I'm doing it alone," I finally said.

Sara's eyes gained a small spark, "Really?"

I nodded.

A determined smile grew to match the spark in her eyes.

"I will be ready," she promised.

"Great."

Another pause sprang up.

"Do you think they…? I mean, they don't really have to do that to her, do they?" she asked shakily.

"I don't know. I hope not."


	5. Welcome Wagon

**Welcome Wagon**

"I think she's coming around."

"Yay."

"There's no need for sarcasm, Brian."

"What? We go through this practically every day. Some poor sap like us gets changed, we come around in the Welcome Wagon, and they don't feel better at all. It's pointless and old."

"The girl is still going to need someone to talk to, she's so young."

I don't care."

Brian!"

I let out a moan in the hope that whoever was talking would shut up. The moan didn't really come out like I thought it would, but I didn't care. I have the worst migraine imaginable and two people bickering like old ladies weren't helping.

"She's awake! Brian, I bet she heard you," the female voice said.

"Rachel, I don't know how to make this any clearer. I don't care," Brian repeated.

"It's times like these that we need to be compassionate. Don't you understand?" Rachel pled.

"No."

I moaned-whined again to see if they could get the message. Over the pounding of my head, had also registered that my entire body hurt like hell too and I really didn't want to hear this. I don't even know who these people are. Or why they're near me, or why I'm wherever I am in the first place.

"See? You're hurting her feelings."

"Oh God, please be quiet. Both of you," I begged.

"See?" Brian mocked, "You're hurting her head."

I heard someone to the left of me come closer.

"Just ignore him and don't worry, the migraine and aching will fade," Rachel told me.

It was nice that someone was being so polite to me and all, but I just wish she'd do it a little quieter. The headache wasn't my only problem either. I could not remember what happened to me; I don't even know what this place looks like because I've had my eyes shut this entire time.

There wasn't much light here, and I was very grateful for that, so I decided to suck it up and open my eyes. I didn't even have to force them open and I scolded myself for being ridiculous.

Of course, once my eyes focused, I didn't think I was too ridiculous anymore.

Everything was bigger than it should be and once I noticed that I was, in fact, _inside a cage, _I panicked. I immediately tried to stand up, but noticed that I could no longer stand upright anymore. In fact, I realized I wasn't even human anymore.

What were once my arms were covered in reddish-brown colored fur and I saw that my hands were actually paws. That was when I really went ballistic.

"Wh-what happened?" I choked out, "Where am I? What happened?"

"Looks like the flood gates have opened," Brian commented drily.

"Shut up, Brian! Hey, calm down. It's going to be o— well, you aren't going to solve anything by panicking," was Rachel's attempt at soothing words.

I was beyond soothing though. Beyond reasoning, really. I began to hyperventilate and I could no longer hear anything either Brian or Rachel said. I'm pretty sure my mind decided to give out on me.

* * *

><p>"Hey, looks like your new pet is coming around again."<p>

"I can't believe you're being so hateful."

"I'm not being hateful. The kid needs to get over it, we all did."

"Oh yes, we all accepted this in five minutes. Just shut up and go back to your brooding."

"Fine."

"Are you alright?" Rachel directed at me.

"No," I whispered.

I hoped that all of that would have been a dream, but once I heard Brian and Rachel, I realized that this was real. I was starting to remember how I'd gotten here and I didn't like it.

"Well, I can't tell you that everything will be alright, but I can say that you aren't the only one going though this. Brian and—well, I can relate," Rachel told me.

I didn't know what to say, so I kept silent. Rachel seemed to understand, though, and left me alone. My thoughts were focusing completely on how this had happened. I can't believe that I'd been so stupid; I should have just told Connor good luck and went right back to bed.

What was going to happen to me? Team Rocket wasn't about to change me back because I knew too much and they weren't going to just leave me to rot. If I know anything, it is that Team Rocket loved profit, all these gangs do, and they weren't about to waste me.

I don't even know if Connor got out and I was ashamed to admit that I was no longer sure if I wanted him to get out. A part of me didn't want to go through this alone; I wanted someone that I knew to be with me. Another part was angry with him and wished that he could know what I'm going through. Yet, another part, which was smaller than the others, hoped desperately that the got away.

"At least they won't leave you here," Brian told me.

"Wh-what?" I sniffled.

"They aren't going to leave you here," he repeated, "You're useful. Cute, I guess, but useful."

"Useful? What are you talking about?"

"Use your head, kid," he said exasperatedly, "Did you think they would leave you to rot. It'd be a waste."

"I figured they would do something with me. What I meant was that I don't get what you thought they'd use me for," I clarified.

"Have you even gotten a good look at yourself? Do you even know what I look like? You've been moping so much that you've been completely ignoring your surroundings. Bad form for where you're gonna end up," he said, popping the "p."

"Brian, stop torturing her," Rachel scolded.

I had to admit that Brian was right though. I'm denying what's happened to me, but that wasn't going to get me anywhere. Sure, I wasn't exactly going to take this change in stride and live my life like I'd never been Rylie Richards or anything, but I did figure that I should know what I look like.

Taking a deep breath, I looked at my prone body. Like earlier, I saw that I was covered in reddish-brown fur. About halfway down my legs, the fur changed to a more reddish hue, like a darker rust color, that continued all the way down to my…paws. My backside was the most shocking. It had a multitude of tails shooting out of it and common sense told me there would be six of them.

"See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?" he asked in a condescending tone.

I glared at him. Brian seemed bitter towards his situation, even though he claimed he's gotten over it, but that didn't mean he had to be such an ass. However, he was a common pokémon, so I guess that didn't help his attitude.

"So, they don't use spearows much?" I asked innocently.

"Only for the grunts," he said distastefully, "and the boss hasn't been recruiting much in the past few months."

My eyes widened, "You're a Rocket?"

"Kid, have you noticed where I am right now? I _was _a Rocket."

"Oh, yeah…. Um, what happened?" I asked timidly.

"You wanna swap stories, huh? You don't have to be so jumpy about it, kid. This is the only interesting part of this whole crappy shifting stuff.

"I messed up a job. Real important one too. I was making a delivery to a client; had a crap load of rare pokémon in the back of the truck. The cops were in on it, though. Must have been an inside job or something…. Anyway, I jumped the truck and let 'em have it. I figured that I didn't want to get busted for smuggling but, well, this isn't much better is it?" he laughed darkly.

I didn't think that he wanted me to answer that so I launched into my story instead. Rachel listened in too, but she didn't interrupt with snorts and snickers like Brian did.

"That's terrible," she said when I was finished.

"What? Her whole situation was entirely avoidable and thus, does not deserve any pity."

"And I suppose you absolutely had to join Team Rocket in the first place?" Rachel asked mildly.

"Hey, you don't know a damn thing about my life," he snarled.

"Oh dear, I clipped the wrong wire. Keep your explosion in your own cage, if you don't mind."

Brian only muttered angrily under his breath in response.

"Are you a Rocket too?" I asked quietly.

"No, but I can't say that this was all an accident. I had some debts, because I'm not the greatest with money. I should've just gone to my parents, but I'd just moved out and they can be pretty critical towards mistakes. The bank wasn't about to approve of any loans under my name, so I went to Team Rocket instead. I couldn't keep up with the payments in the end. I was pretty much changed into a marill to 'redeem Team Rockets loses,'" she mimicked the doctor's voice, "Not that they've gotten much use out of me in this cage."

"Why didn't they change you into something they could use immediately?" I asked.

"One of their clients had apparently placed an order for a marill, but it was cancelled. Now I have to wait for another order so I can be sold like a piece of property. That or wait for a Rocket to pick me out for battling, which will probably never happen," she answered.

I could still hardly believe that Team Rocket actually did this to people. Like everyone was potentially a pawn in their sick business.

No one spoke after that. I was trying to decide if I should think about how this was going to go or if I should put it off and live in denial. The latter was undeniably easier for me to do, but that wasn't going to get me anywhere. Granted, I'm not really going anywhere anyway while I'm locked inside a cage but…. Honestly, I have no idea what to do next.

When Brian had told me that I was lucky not to be left here, I thought he was insane. I mean, surely not being used a merchandise for the mob was a good thing, right? Except, waiting here was going to kill me. I can't stand it even now and there's that small detail of already being taken advantage of by them whether I wanted to admit it or not.

Thinking about it really got it to sink in. They were already using me. Even when they aren't giving me some sort of job, they are already taking advantage of me. The fact that I'm sitting here, waiting for the Rockets to think up some task for me to perform was proof of this. If they wanted to leave me here, they could. The Rockets could just decide to make me a part of their little collection; to leave me to rot until I die. Just as I'm doing now. I have no way to change any of this. I can't go for help; hell, I can't even get out of this cage. I am completely and utterly helpless.

That thought probably would have caused me to burst into tears, but since I was no longer capable of that, I only had whimpering left to me. I wished I could cry, because I could at least do that silently. My new form of tears sounded pathetic.

"Please stop the blubbering. It's distracting."

"There's nothing that you can do right now that can be distracted from, Brian. Just leave her alone."

"She can tell me that herself, you now," Brian commented.

"Does it look like she's in any condition to tell you to go screw yourself?" Rachel snapped.

"Ooh, testy are we? You don't usually talk so inappropriately. Don't know why you're so worked up over this, or course. Seeing as we don't even know her name or anything else about her besides the fact that she only has one brain cell," he drawled, "Are you suicidal, kid? 'Cause that's apparently the only thing your singular brain cell can instruct you to do if you thought infiltrating the base was a good idea."

"Sometimes I really think you deserve what's happened to you." Rachel said quietly.

"Should I say thank you?"

"Unbelieveable. Just—just stop. I can't listen to you anymore. I really can't. Can we please just go to sleep?" Rachel was nearly begging.

"Fine, that was what I was trying to do to begin with."

In any other circumstances, the constant arguing might have been funny. Now, it just had me wishing that this section of cages would collapse on me. As it was, I agreed with Rachel on this one. There wasn't much else to do, and since I'm really not up to telling them about me, that only left sleep.


	6. Dusting Up Flakes

**Dusting Up Flakes**

There was no way to make this any simpler. I already drew up a chart to explain, I tried books and apparently the computer was no help either. This girl just wasn't getting it. Maybe she was doing this on purpose. Yeah, that's completely out of character for her, but I'm at my end here.

"Connor, just give me a little while to go over this," Sara said in frustration.

"We don't have a 'little while,'" I snapped, "Rylie is in there and the sooner we get her out of there, the better."

That was becoming increasingly apparent. Rylie's parents finally came over to my place yesterday and it wasn't that great of a visit. They were completely and utterly desperate and practically begged me to tell them anything I could. It was depressing.

I wished I could give them something. They were even blaming themselves. Apparently, Rylie hadn't been too excited about moving here and they'd come to the conclusion that she's run away. That was when Rob blurted out that Rylie didn't have any stuff with her when he last saw her sneaking out of their house and that he thought something must have happened to her. Needless to say, that bombshell didn't drop too lightly and they went home to presumably "discuss" what Rob had told them.

It was easy to feel sorry for all of them. Especially Rob who looked like he was beating himself up over what may or may not have happened. I could relate, considering that I was the one who was really responsible for this.

"Yeah, Connor, I know that," she snapped back, "But, I can't become a pokémon master in a few days. It's been a week, Connor. This is going to take a few months _at least_."

"Them maybe you should stay behind," I said through my teeth.

"You think you can do this alone, don't you? Connor, don't let your ego affect this. You aren't Red or Kris. There's no way that you can single handedly defeat Team Rocket. Especially since they seem to be ignoring any sort of regulations from the Pokémon League or _the law_," she cried.

"So, you think that you're going to make that much of a difference? How? You can't even remember that Bug moves are super effective against the Psychic type. Or that Dark moves will hardly dent Steel," I scoffed.

"I'm trying! Don't you get that? I'm trying as hard as I can. I didn't go on a League challenge, I never had someone to teach me this as I grew up! You aren't going to do anything by rushing, just give me some time," she pled, "You'll improve too."

She doesn't get it. I can't wait. I have to do this now, or very, very soon. This was my fault, or at least a massive chunk of this was. I can't sleep or eat and I feel like I can't move on unless I fix this.

"Connor," Sara said quietly, "rushing in to save the day got us here. It isn't going to get us out."

I screwed my eyes shut and turned away from her. She was right. I didn't want to admit it, but she was. Of course, anyone should have been able to see that rushing wouldn't help. Even me. This was all so stupid.

"All right," I said finally, "Fine. You… you keep going over the chart and I'll spend the weekend capturing some more types."

"Thank you."

We then sat down at my kitchen table and started to stare at everything else besides each other. The silence between us was as awkward as that time Sara had told me she liked me. This wasn't the first time we've had this argument, or one like it, and I had a feeling that we were going to have many more. I still wasn't too eager to take Sara, especially now since she's brought up the nice little point that I wasn't like those champions.

Everyone in Johto has heard the stories, even the ones from Kanto. We all knew about the two ten-year-olds that disbanded Team Rocket. Red single-handedly and Kris with some small help with from Lance, a former Champion. Actually, _both_ Red and Kris were Champions themselves. How could I live up to that?

"There's no way we can do this by ourselves," I told her.

Sara turned to me in shock, "What did you say?"

"You heard what I said," I answered gruffly.

"So, you want to give up?"

"No," I snapped.

"Then what, Connor? Why bring that up? I know that there's a huge chance that we won't pull this off."

"Why are you here then?" I demanded hotly.

"Don't turn this on me. I'm willing to take this risk. There's no one for us to turn to. I know that and you do too. Or should, anyway. I am not the one that seems to be having second thoughts. I am not the one here that is picking fights with the only person that will understand and help. What do you want out of this? What do you want out of me? Please tell me, Connor, because I'm tired of trying to guess," she answered almost furiously.

I let out a long breath. There was a part of me that wanted to be angry with her. She was being so irritatingly right. I never like to be told that I'm being stupid and that's what she's doing. Who was Sara Parker to tell me that I was acting stupid? She was the one that need to be taught the most simple concepts of being a Trainer, not me. I'm not the one holding us back.

Then, there was the other part of me that realized that she was right. We couldn't do this by ourselves, but we had to try for Rylie. We could at least go back and try to get the evidence that I failed to acquire before. Maybe they had some files lying around that we could grab. I guess there was nothing forcing us into storming the Rocket base and making a suicide run by taking on every single gang member in it. The cops would help us, if we gave them a reason to .

"I'm sorry," I told her after a silence.

"I get it, Connor. Honestly, I do, but I don't want to come here everyday and have you turn on me for everything I do or say. I'll deal with it if I have to, but I don't want to."

"I know and I don't really want to spend time getting mad at you."

"Then don't. Let's just focus on what we're doing."

Sara was about to return to looking at the chart I made her when my doorbell started to ring incessantly. There was only one person that presses my doorbell so obnoxiously and I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with him at the moment.

Drew knew nothing about what happened and Sara and I weren't really looking to fill him in. He obviously couldn't handle this sort of thing, given the way he ran away before. I'm not sure I even want to bother going to him about any of this if he was just going to bail. Sure, I understood before. He didn't want to be there, so who was I or anybody else to force him to stay? Rylie can't afford to have anyone abandon her now, no matter how hand or terrible things get.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hey."

I kept him at the door; I wasn't sure if I even wanted to invite him in. Drew was bound to ask questions and he'd know we were up to something. Sara and I have been blowing him off for days and I'd guess that he wasn't going to be happy when he found out she was here.

"You gonna let me in? Or do you want to stand all day in the doorway?" he asked irritably.

"Uh, yeah. Sure," I stepped aside and he went past me.

He headed for the kitchen and I followed him reluctantly. There was going to be a lot of complaining soon and I'm not really the best with complainers. Drew stopped when he saw Sara sitting at the table, then turned to me and scowled. I wished Sara didn't look so guilty at the sight of him; that wouldn't have tipped him off that we've been up to something.

"What's she doing here?" he demanded.

I shrugged noncommittally, "Sara decided to stop by. What's the problem?"

"You told me you had stuff to do at home," he said to her, "and, Connor, you told me you were going to be in the forest."

"If you knew I would be in the forest, then what are you doing here?" I asked him.

"I saw you walking towards your house after school and I thought I'd go along to the forest with you. Obviously you were both lying to me, though, so I'll just leave. Don't wanna get in between the two of you," he said bitterly.

I felt a little guilty at the relief I felt as he started to leave. I just didn't want him here. There was always a chance to fix things up with him later when I had a better grasp of things, but right now, Rylie was more important. The stress of teaching Sara how to battle well was bad enough. Taking on Drew without the guarantee that he would commit completely would be too much for me.

Sara apparently didn't see things my way, however.

"Andrew, wait!" she called, "This isn't what you think!"

"Then what is it?" he snapped, "This is real great timing, guys. I mean, you could have waited a decent time after Rylie's disappearance to get together or whatever, but hey, who am I, huh? Obviously no one important enough that one of you could tell me about this."

I snorted, "Relax, man, this isn't some secret meeting."

"Whatever," was all he said as he tried to leave again.

"No, Andrew, we're just trying to help Rylie!" Sara blurted.

"What are you talking about? How could _you_ help her?" he asked exasperatedly.

I tried to get Sara to drop this with one of my sharpest glares, but she apparently didn't care and pushed on anyway.

"Connor's teaching me how to battle and everything so we can help her."

"Sara, how is your knowing how to battle going to help her? This has to be the stupidest excuse ever," he said, completely disgusted.

"We know what happened to her, Andrew. If you'd stop and listen, I could explain," Sara said and I was just barely able to distinguish the irritation in her voice.

"Sara, I need to talk to you," I interjected.

"Connor, I know you don't want to tell him, but he should hear this," Sara told me dismissively.

"A lot of people need to hear this. First and foremost, Rylie's family. He won't believe that we aren't involved, he can't hear this," I said firmly.

"Hear what?" Drew demanded.

"Nothing."

"Connor and Rylie snuck out—" Sara started.

"Stop. We don't know what happened, Drew."

"He could help us!"

"Forget about it, Sara," Drew snapped, "Whatever it is you guys are doing doesn't really matter to me anymore."

Drew went to leave, but this time, he turned back on his own.

"You need to work on your story. Using Rylie is pathetic," he then stormed out and I heard my front door slam shut.

"Why did you do that?" Sara demanded angrily.

"He doesn't need to know. Listen to me for a second," I said before she could bite back, "Is he really someone we need right now? I'm not even sure he likes Rylie enough to help her. He ran when we went into the base, I'd have to teach him battle techniques too, and he probably won't even believe us. There is too much risk with him. Maybe we can tell him eventually, but right now doesn't sit well with me."

"We're going to tell him eventually," Sara insisted.

"Fine, then you can do it."

"You're the one that was being such a jerk!" she exclaimed.

"Exactly. He'll probably listen to you."


	7. Camping Trip

**Important for those that follow the update days: I will be changing my weekly update to Thursdays.**

* * *

><p><strong>Camping Trip<strong>

I was tempted to ask whether the Rockets forget about us at times. There was no way for me to tell how long I've been here, but it's felt like a while now. There hasn't been a single Rocket in this room since I'd been… changed. I still don't know what they're going to do with me and I've been getting more nervous as time's gone on.

There was no way I was going to. Ask, I mean; not now. Brian has proven to me that he's nothing by an ass and I can't deal with him any longer. I'll wait for him to fall asleep and then ask Rachel. She's really the only reason I'm still sane. We've been talking about practically everything we could think of and I think she's just as glad to be able to talk to me as I am with her. Of course, neither of us would wish this on anyone, but it was nice not to be alone. With someone like Brian as a roommate, I couldn't blame her for being eager to talk.

Rachel has been encouraging me to get used to the vulpix body I'm trapped in. Surprisingly, Brian agreed with her, though he did tell me if I didn't, I'd probably be "trashed." Still, it was nice because he didn't have much to mock.

Anyway, they suggested that I just start with walking around the tiny perimeter of the cage I was locked in. It was confusing and frustrating at first; I kept tripping over my… paws. The challenge of coordinating four legs wasn't that enjoyable. Rachel did tell me that I'd gotten the hang of it way sooner than some of the others she's met. I wasn't sure how to take that, however. Sure, she didn't mean anything by that, but the fact that I was good at walking around like a pokémon was kind of a mood dampener.

I guess that doesn't really matter. The cage is way too small to allow much movement, so walking became boring pretty quickly. No one was talking much and the silence was really getting to me. Earlier, I had tried speaking with some of the others in the cages from across the room, but no one really reacted well to my raised voice. Brian had a lot to say at that particular moment.

"Do you think they're worried about you?" I blurted out, unable to stand the silence any longer.

"Who?" Rachel answered.

"Your family and friends."

She sighed, "Probably."

"Oh."

"Sorry, I just don't like to think about that much. My parents may not have been the greatest, but I'd like to think that they'd care about me dropping off the face of the earth."

"I'm sure they do," I offered.

"Yeah."

An awkward silence rose between us and I wished I hadn't said anything. This was worse than before and I was desperately trying to think of something to break it.

"What about you?" she asked and I felt myself breathing out in relief.

"My family only moved here from Hoenn a few months ago. They probably think I ran away or something," I said quietly.

"Why would they think that?"

"I didn't want to move. I didn't throw tantrums or anything, but I still made sure that my parents knew how much I didn't like their great family plan."

"So, you don't like it here," she probed.

I had a feeling that Rachel knew that I needed to talk about this right now. That or my story was distracting her from her own. Either way, I didn't mind. Brian had yet to show even mild interest in this conversation, which was shocking. He's proven himself to be extremely nosy and addicted to drama.

"Well, I made some new friends and everything and it is nice here. Better, actually, but I didn't tell my parents that," I clarified.

"They probably knew. Maybe they saw that you were happy here."

"I guess. I just don't want them to think I ran away. Then again, the truth—or what Rob thinks is the truth—can't be any better," I muttered.

"Rob?"

"My brother. He saw me sneaking out that night, but he didn't say anything. He's probably blaming himself right now and I wish he wouldn't. What if I never get changed back? He'll blame himself forever. My family will probably think I'm dead, but I'm only a twenty minute walk from them and that really sucks. Everything about this sucks! What am I going to do? I don't want to be some pawn for Team Rocket. I don't even what to be here at all! I should—"

"You should shut up," Brian interrupted me in mid rant.

"Brian, please," Rachel said, "I think she deserves a small mental breakdown."

"Perhaps if she was quiet about it, then others wouldn't mind."

"You're only talking about yourself," Rachel accused him.

I let them argue, having gotten used to it by now. Actually, I was kind of glad they were; it gave me some time to calm down. I'd never tell him, but Brian actually snapped me out of my panic mode and I was grateful for that. I'm tired of crying over this. It's exhausting and now it only makes me feel worse.

"I distinctly remember you moping about after your change," Rachel said as I tuned back into the fight.

"Maybe I was. But, I did it quietly."

"Yeah? What about all the lashing out you did after you were done wallowing?"

"I didn't ask you or anybody else to talk to me," he snapped.

"Oh, looks like you aren't quite done lashing out. Face it, Brian, you're a hypocrite. We all had to deal with you screaming into the night about how you didn't deserve this, but as soon as anybody else shows any emotion, you can't handle it."

"I was not—"

The sound of the door opening made them go silent immediately. Everyone went silent, not that the others were that talkative to begin with. However, it did feel like they had nearly stopped breathing.

The Rocket that put many of us here in this predicament stepped into the room. She was followed by a suit. He looked like he ran this entire operation with they way he held himself in a cool, relaxed manner. Another Rocket brought up the rear. She didn't really seem like a grunt, but more like a veteran member. It didn't look like she feared and awed this man, but more that she actually respected the suit and maybe even the doctor.

"Is this to your liking, Rinaldo?" the doctor asked.

I heard Rachel gasp in horror to my left. I turned to her and Brian and saw that they were both cowering in terror. For a moment, I didn't get it. This Rinaldo was just a man, wasn't he? Yeah, he was obviously…. Damn, he can't be that guy the doctor was talking about with Reynolds was he? She had made him sound like the actual boss of Team Rocket.

Rinaldo began to casually walk around the room, occasionally taking a look into the cages at the pokémon within. When he got to me, he stopped and gave me a good long look, then turned back to the doctor.

"Agathe, when did you get this?"

"Last week. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I thought you'd rather see her for yourself on your visit than hear about her over a call," the doctor said in a reconciliatory tone.

Oh man, she was staring at him in complete adoration. The little bitch wanted him…. For his part, though, Rinaldo seemed to either not notice her, or he didn't care.

"Very well. Come here, girl," he ordered the last Rocket.

I had a feeling Agathe was one of the very few people Rinaldo allowed mistakes or independent thinking from.

"Yes, boss?"

"Take this one," he said, indicating me.

The Rocket looked at me in shock and I looked back in horror. No, it was much better to rot away in this cage with Brian and Rachel, than go off with some chick with a penchant for crime. She might enjoy working me to death and I wasn't exactly eager to be owned by someone else.

"A vulpix?" she breathed, "But, they're so rare in Johto…. Are you sure?"

He glared at her and the girl visibly gulped, "You aren't keeping it—"

I gave a sharp growl at his calling me an it.

"Rylie, no!" Rachel whispered urgently.

Rinaldo unlatched the door to my cage and his hand flashed inside to pick me up by the scruff of my neck. He wasn't careful about it at all and I cried out in pain. I was hauled out of the cage and brought before his tanned, cold face.

"Did you want to say something?" he asked mildly and painfully twisted the fur he was holding.

I yelped in pain again and he smiled. I could see the anger behind his eyes and I suddenly found him as frightening as Brian, Rachel, and all the others did. He was so calm and focused and he would probably hurt me over and over again until he thought I wouldn't fight back.

"No?" he asked as I kept silent this time, "As I was saying, you aren't keeping it. Merely borrowing her for this mission. I like to continue to catch wild Pokémon and this one may attract others of her kind hiding out in the forest. In any case, she should be able to figure out how to track. Take her and look."

Rinaldo threw me to the ground, but before I could even try to run away, he nonchalantly tossed a poké ball at me. It hit me right in the back and I was enveloped in a red light. About two seconds was all it took for the light to presumably beam my body inside the device and I could no longer feel myself. Despite having no physical feeling at all, I sort of began to mentally struggle as hard as I could.

However, it was almost like my wishes didn't matter. Actually, there was no question; they didn't. I ended up inside the poké ball and no amount of struggling on my part helped at all. Perhaps if I had been raised as a pokémon, I'd be able to put up a decent fight. Maybe I'm just weak. There was no helping the situation either way.

* * *

><p>"Get out here, Vulpix!"<p>

A flash of light was the first thing that I was aware of for what felt like a long time. The poké ball was not pleasant. I spent the entire time struggling, but I only paid for my efforts now as a headache set in. I experienced nothing in that thing and was left only with my panicked thoughts, which did not feel good at all.

It was completely overwhelming once she let me out. I went from black nothingness to seeing sunlight, countless trees, feeling grass underneath my paws and the wind battering at the curls on my head. There were too many scents to make sense of right now and I was only barely able to register that the Rocket and I were standing before a section of Ilex Forest.

"Alright then, go find something," she ordered me.

Seriously? This girl does realize that I've never so much as entered a forest in my entire life, right? I've never even gone camping. Sure, I prefer being outside, but that's pretty much limited to my backyard, or the park. I looked up at her—it really gets on my nerves that I'm so tiny now—and tried to relay my confusion to her.

"What? Do you want me to hold your hand or something?" she sneered.

No, actually I want you to go to—

"Whatever, come on or you're going back in here," she said and waved the poké ball at me tauntingly.

I couldn't help the low growl that escaped me but, luckily, the Rocket didn't seem to notice. She did seem to realize that I had no idea what I'm doing and led the way into the trees.

"Don't even think about running off. I've still got the poké ball and you'll go right back inside if you try anything," she called back to me.

I was thinking of doing exactly that, however she was right in that doing so now would do absolutely nothing. Hopefully the forest would be thick enough that I could make a break for it. Until then, I followed her like she ordered and tried to keep the growling to myself.

She kept close to me, most likely afraid that I would run off, and directed me blindly into the trees. It soon became very apparent that she had very little experience in this. I tried to get her to follow the paths, but every time I strayed, she fingered the poké ball threateningly.

"Don't be stupid," she snapped, "Why would any vulpix or ninetales be seen anywhere near the trails? Where they know people are?"

Yeah, okay, I'm the stupid one…. I'm the one that hasn't brought a backpack. A backpack that would have hopefully held a compass or a map, some food for a long excursion….

It was hours later that we both started to feel the effects of her lack of preparation. Actually, I'm not sure she would even think to feed me. At the base, we're fed and watered by some sort of automated system. One guy is probably in charge of caring for us all and I would bet my humanity that she was not that person.

Anyway, we were both beginning to feel hungry. I could hear her stomach growling loudly and mine was making some uncomfortable lurches. We'd yet to run into any sort of pokémon and I thought that was really weird. I remembered Connor once telling me that he really hated traveling through forests because pokémon could and would jump out at you at any time. Now, there was nothing, not even a sound.

"Alright, this is pointless," the Rocket commented and dropped to the ground, "Hey! Don't even try it."

I stopped trying to shuffle away from her and sat down irritably.

"Why did the boss give me this job? It doesn't make any sense, I collect debts…. I'm good at it too, or I thought I was," she mused, "I should have packed some things for this. I can't go back with nothing; the boss will only turn me into one of you."

I didn't realize that she was talking to me. Actually, I'd been continuing my search for an escape route. For the past few hours, it's been my plan to run off and try to find Connor. Hopefully, he'll be able to piece together what's happened and help me somehow. I'm not exactly eager to go to him, considering that he got me into this situation in the first place, but I didn't exactly have a lot of options. Really, I only have one option.

"So, what did you do to get turned into that?" I hope she's only asking me to pass the time because I don't want to worry about a hallucinating Rocket suffering from dehydration. "I've always wondered that, you know? I've known about this for awhile, since we tend to hear a lot of stuff, and I've always wondered: what exactly do you have to do to get the boss that mad at you? I guess it has to be a pretty big and stupid mistake…," she rambled.

She stared off into the trees and I suddenly had a break. If I didn't think it'd get me caught, I would cry out in joy, but as it was, I began a slow, quiet shuffle away from her side. My hope is that I can reach some tree cover, and then run off. I don't really care that we're lost. I just want to get away.

There was a bush that I was slowly heading towards. I've never been so enthralled by a plant before. It was beautiful with its thick, dark leaf cover and it just looked so healthy from the way the leaves grew all the way down to the forest floor. It was perfect and I was sure that I'd never appreciate another bush like this again. At least, I hope I don't because I'm not really into botany; plants are very boring.

Of course, I should have anticipated the one stick that would be between me and the awesome bush. Seriously, how many times have I seen this sort of thing in movies? Too many times, I'd bet. However, I only spotted it when I felt the damn thing beneath my right pad and shifted my weight onto it.

It gave the typical gunshot-like crack and everything seemed to speed up.

The Rocket was immediately alerted to my escape attempt. I suspected that she jumped up and tried to recall me into the poké ball, but I didn't take the time to actually look. At the same time I felt the stick from the Dark Realm give way, I shot off.

A tiny part of me appreciated the fact that I was able to run. I've never had to run in this body before and that had been one of my fears as I thought up this simplistic escape. However, I quickly shut that part down and focused on what I should be doing, which was running for my freedom.

The bush was just as fantastic as I thought it was. I was able to slip right under it and head deeper into the forest, zigzagging all the way. The Rocket, however, had apparently crashed right into it and got tangled in the branches if her cursing was any indication. I wished it had been a rose bush….

I didn't stop when she was out of sight. I didn't even stop when I couldn't hear her anymore. My only thought was to get away, as far away as I could, and then figure out what to do from there. Trees and foliage seemed to streak past me instead of the other way around, and I was barely aware of passing by various pokémon.

Eventually, I burst into a clearing in the forest and that's where I ended up collapsing in exhaustion. By this time, I was confident about getting away from the Rocket. From what I saw of her wilderness skills, or lack thereof, she wasn't about to burst into this clearing after tracking me through the forest. I'll be surprised if she's even able to find her way back to the city.

Now that I thought about it, I'll be surprised if _I _can find my way back. I had to admit that running blindly through the forest was not one of my best plans. The trees around me were massive and looked ancient; I must have run right into the heart of Ilex. No, not smart at all on my part.

Rustling from behind me immediately broke my thoughts. For a second, I thought that perhaps the Rocket had been smarter than I thought she was and had found me. However, as I spun around to face whatever was coming upon me, that wasn't the case.

A small vulpix burst out of the foliage and tumbled into the clearing. This was the first time I'd ever seen a real vulpix, well, aside from me. The vulpix was smaller than me, which made me feel a little better, and was looking at me in surprise. We stared at each other for several long moments. I don't know why she was so shocked, but I was surprised that I actually ended up doing what the Rockets had wanted me to. Granted, this vulpix found _me, _but I guess it doesn't really matter.

"Um… hi," I said after I got tired of the silence.

The young vulpix only squeaked and cowered in response.

"Whoa," I said, shocked that something was afraid of _me, _"I'm not going to hurt you. I don't think I can hurt you, anyway. Actually, you could probably hurt me before I could even try anything," I rambled.

For some reason, I was nervous. Despite what I said, I wasn't thinking that this vulpix would actually try anything. No, I was more afraid of the idea of this vulpix's mother charging into the clearing and ripping my head off. I'm not exactly sure why she would attack me, but I just have this feeling that I shouldn't be talking to this… kit.

My rambling seemed to calm it down.

"Where's you pack?" she asked me quietly.

I had to strain to hear her, but once I did, I had to decide what lie to tell her. The truth was out of the question because I really don't want to freak her out and invite the eventual wrath of her parents on me. However, I didn't want to get complicated with this. Well, I could sort of tell the truth….

"I don't have one."

Unfortunately, this had the exact affect on her that I wanted to avoid. She was obviously terrified of me now, but she also seemed too frightened to turn her back on me and run. So, she went back to the cowering.

"What's the matter?" I was completely confused by her reaction.

"Wh-where's y-your human?" she stuttered.

I kicked myself for being so stupid for a few seconds and decided that I might as well tell her the truth, or as much of it as I could. My hope is that I can get this vulpix's parents to help me, but kids were notoriously honest. If I told her one thing, and them another, she was sure to bring it up.

"I ran way. She was terrible to me, so I lost her in the forest."

"I'm not supposed to be talking to you," she whispered.

I'd kind of gathered that, but I figured that I might as well try to her here to see if I could convince her and hopefully some adults by association, that I needed help. That and I had this weird happiness of finding another vulpix. Never mind that I'm actually human…..

"Why?"

"Your trainer will come after you and then it will catch me too," she whimpered.

"Well, she's probably looking for me, but I don't think she'll find me. She didn't bring any pokémon with us and so without me, she'll probably just try to go back to the city," I was trying to reassure myself as much as her with that thought. I'm truly terrified of being taken back to that place.

"How do you know?"

Talking to me seemed to actually be giving her confidence and the little thing was pretty loud with that challenge.

"Well, she didn't even bring a backpack with her. Um… you know, she didn't bring food and stuff with her. Humans aren't too good at hunting by themselves and she'll probably get cold without any fur…. She doesn't like the forest," I guessed.

The vulpix thought about this for the next few moments. My mood lifted at the prospect of having convinced her of my story, but at the same time, I knew that this wasn't much. She's a kid, and, thus, a bit gullible. I really need to convince her pack and that was probably going to be much harder.

"What's your name?" she finally asked me.

"Rylie."

"I'm Nina," she said shyly.

We fell into an uncomfortable silence after that. I began to shuffle one of my paws against the grass and Nina started to bathe herself. It wasn't until that moment that I realized that I hadn't cleaned myself in… a week, right? Disgust towards myself started to sink in and only became worse when I realized _how _I was going to have to clean myself from now on.

"So, where's your pack?" I asked once it became too unbearable to think of licking dirt off myself. Dirt among other things…. I shuddered and forced my thoughts away from that.

Nina looked at me mischievously, "Don't know, I snuck out of the den."

My heart sank.

"You're not supposed to be out now? Aren't your parents going to freak?" If Nina thought I could be dangerous, then what would and over-protective pokémon think of me? Geez, they're going to rip me to shreds.

"My mom will probably be mad, but my uncle's gonna be worse," she said cheerfully.

"Um… what's so great about that?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired of being left in the den all the time. I never get to go outside," she pouted.

Fantastic, I'm stuck with what I'd probably guess is an eight-year-old vulpix out in a strange forest. There was a good chance that neither of us knows how to fight and with the added prospect of Nina's furious pack coming after her, I really can't figure out why I'm still standing here. Maybe it was the desperate hope that they'd help me and that annoying twitch in my conscience that wouldn't allow me to just leave Nina here.

"Hey," she piped up, "you've been trained, right? Don't you know some cool battle moves?"

"Well, I wasn't trained for long. I don't really know anything."

She looked disappointed for a moment, but then another question came over her.

"Were you one of those pokémon that the humans groom?"

"What?"

"The ones that the humans clean and make them stand in front other humans," she tried to explain.

"How do you know about contests?" I asked in surprise.

"My mom had a trainer a long time ago, but the human let her free."

"Oh. No, I'm not a contest pokémon. Why?"

"Well," she said awkwardly, "You look really dirty."

Yeah, I probably do…. I checked my tails and saw that they were all matted. It looked pretty gross.

"I haven't had time to worry about what I look like," I told her as dismissively as I could. Hopefully, she'll just drop it.

"You have time now. I could help too," she offered.

I should have remembered that kids hardly ever drop any subject they fixate on. They also tend to be very helpful and thought I appreciate the offer… sorta…, it still grossed me out. I don't even want to think about doing this myself and the idea of someone else… yeah, not happening.

Nina was expecting an answer and I desperately racked my brain for something I could say. The idea of hurting her feelings made me feel guilty, but I don't really know how to avoid that. What are the cultural norms here? How the hell do I decline this? It might be as simple as saying, "No thank you," but what if it's a cultural taboo to decline a mass grooming? Of course, this wasn't really a mass grooming because there are only two of us—

"NINA!"

I think that's what the voice said because it was more like a roar. A massive ninetales burst from the trees and Nina actually scrambled to hide behind me. I'm assuming that he's a member of Nina's pack, but I didn't blame her for hiding. Compared to us, this guy was huge and his fierce, red eyes looked ferocious as he snarled in anger.

"Hi, Saban," she whispered meekly.

Saban didn't respond, he merely stormed over to us and swatted me onto my back like I was nothing. His snarling face was soon in mine and I could actually see sparks coming out of his mouth. Damn, I knew I should have just ditched Nina when I had the chance.


	8. The Pack

**Alright, I know what some of you must be thinking. "She did say that the update day is changed to Thursday, right?" Well, yes, yes I did. In fact, I went and made it sound all important, only to miss yesterday, but make the _original_ update day. Honestly, I am so upset with myself, I can't even tell you. It's quite embarrasing, now that I think about it. I changed the day because I knew I was going to be busy for the next few weeks (how often must you guys get this line? I know I get it all the time and I hate that I have to use it.) so I thought Thursday would be easier to make. I'm not going to apologize for being busy, because fact of the matter is, I _could _have found some way to make yesterday's update. Rather, I'm apologizing for missing it to begin with. I really hate that this happened. I mean, why else have an eight chapter buffer if you don't use it... **

**I'm going to warn you all though, I am indeed busy at this time. Don't worry, I'm not going to drop off the face of the earth because I really hate it when that happens to authors that I read, but I may not be able to make Thursday again next week. For the next few weeks things are going to be a little touch and go. I'll still try to hit Thursday, but don't be surprised if I can only do Friday or Wednesday or whatever. On or near Thursday, that's what I'm trying to say. I'll let y'all know in a later update when things die down and you can expect a firm update day again. **

* * *

><p><strong>The Pack<strong>

"Who are you?" he snarled at me.

Normally, that would be a very easy question to answer. However, I've completely forgotten what my own name is right now and that makes things more difficult. The only thing I found myself capable of at the moment was hyper-ventilating.

"Well?" he hissed at me and put his face even closer into mine. My only thought at the moment was about how bad his breath smelled and then how terrible it must be to not have access to toothpaste.

"Saban, don't hurt her!" Nina pled with him and tried to push him off me.

He dragged his eyes away from me and glared at Nina.

"Not now," he said angrily.

"No! She hasn't done anything to me. She's been really nice," Nina said stubbornly.

It was at that time that my brain decided to turn on.

"I'm sorry; she just came out of nowhere! I didn't know any vulpix would even be in this part of the forest," I said quickly.

"Where's the rest of your pack?" he demanded.

"I-I don't have one! I haven't done anything," I struggled fruitlessly under him. It frustrated me that all it took was one of his paws to hold me down.

Saban suddenly became eerily calm and that was even more frightening than his snarling behavior if that was even possible.

"Then where is your trainer?" he asked coldly.

My mouth grew dry, "I-I ran away. They sent me in here to find some of you, but I didn't want to. I ran way, but I don't think she followed me. She doesn't like the forest, see? She probably left when she couldn't find me. I-I don't want to listen to them. I don't even want to be here so if you could—"

"Be quiet," he ordered and my rambling stopped immediately. "Why did they want you to find us?"

"I don't know," I whispered.

"No, you do know. Tell me. Now."

"They just wanted you. I don't know if you know what money is, but that's why. They were probably going to lock you up and sell you guys to other people or use you for battles. I don't know. They just wanted me to track you. I didn't want to do it, I just want to go home—"

"Stop."

He lifted his paw and I shot up as quickly as I could. I prayed that he wasn't about to tear me apart, but the fact that he was letting me up had to mean something, right? If I had known how frightening Saban was going to be, I wouldn't have stayed in this clearing. Hell, I would have just kept running until I got to the other end of the forest.

Saban was staring at me closely, and I shrunk under his gaze. It was like he was daring me to admit that I was lying about my escape attempt. However, for the first time since he'd scared me into talking, I kept my mouth shut.

Finally, he turned away from me and looked Nina over. She looked about as uncomfortable as I felt, but at least she knew that Saban wasn't going to kill her.

"Come on," he said as he turned away. "Both of you."

"What? Where-"

"If you think I'm going to let you return to your masters, then you're very much mistaken," he said pointedly.

I was beginning to get more than a little irritated with him for interrupting me.

"They're not my masters, and I don't want to go back," I snapped.

He didn't respond, but rather continued walking into the trees. I scrambled to catch up with him and Nina to avoid getting lost. I didn't really want to follow him; he scared the crap out of me but I had little choice. He did want me to follow so there was a chance that he'd just force me to come if I refused. Besides, I don't know how to get out of this forest, I can't hunt, and I don't have a place to stay. Then there was that problem of it getting dark….

"I'm sorry," Nina told me once I caught up. "He's not usually so mean. Saban just doesn't like humans."

"So, is this the uncle you were talking about?" I asked her.

"Sorry," she repeated sheepishly.

"Um, when you said your uncle was going to freak out worse than your mom, how much worse did you mean?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, is your mom going to rip my head off when we get to wherever we're going?" I clarified.

"Oh, no. She's going to be madder at me. Mom might not even notice you for a while."

"Great," I drawled.

We then lapsed into an awkward silence. It wasn't that we couldn't find something to talk about, or at least I had a lot to talk about. Mainly, this forest, if they could help me back to the city, etc. however, this was one of those silences where the victims weren't sure whether they had permission to speak or not. Nina was probably going to be put to death by yelling and Saban made it very obvious that he hated me. There was no guarantee that he wouldn't stop tolerating me and turn around to murder me, and then bury my body under a tree. Perhaps he'd leave it out in the open….

I then proceeded to pass this creepy walk through the woods – it has gotten dark – by imagining all of the very morbid ways that Saban could kill me. It only made the walk worse, but I couldn't stop. Yeah, I was so caught up in my thoughts, I almost ran into my potential murderer once he stopped. I was just about to, but I was just able to throw on the brakes and landed right on my butt with Nina giggling beside me.

"Not funny," I glared at her.

"So… funny," she sputtered.

Saban turned to stare us down and Nina's laughter immediately dried up. Apparently, we weren't supposed to be talking….

That was when I noticed where we ended up. Saban was standing right in front a hole in the ground. For a second. I thought that this was where it as going to happen. He was going to just push me into this hole and bury me there. As morbid as this sounds, I had hoped that he would kill me first. I don't want to be buried alive. That would really suck and I really don't like the idea of suffocating in the dark.

Nina, however, either had a death wish and accepted her fate easily, or this isn't what I think it is. She walked right up to the cleverly hidden hole, which was covered with various greenery, and ducked right in. I stared after her for a long moment, but then realized that Saban expected me to follow her.

I slunk after her, not wanting to incur the wrath of the much larger member of my new species, and went inside. I felt like Loki, acting just like he does after I catch him chewing on my dad's slippers. Saban unknowingly made me feel better by following after us. Of course, he could just kill me inside, too.

The tunnel inside was much bigger than I thought it would be; Saban barely had to duck his head to walk. We didn't have to walk a long way before the tunnel lead into a larger room area. It wasn't massive, just a little quaint and the only features it had were three mounds of moss and furnishings. I guess they were cots.

Inside was also another ninetales and I either instinctively knew that she was female, or I just made the assumption that this was Nina's mom. I was really hoping that it was the latter because I can't say that I'm comfortable with the thought of being able to heed vulpix instincts. However, I'll never really know because Nina confirmed her female status before I could think this through.

"Hi, Mom," she said shyly and looked at the ground.

She was probably thinking that her mother was going to scream at her, but that didn't happen. Instead, her mother scrambled to her and began to fuss over her.

"Where have you been?" she cried more than demanded.

"I was just exploring. The forest isn't as dangerous as you guys say it is," Nina was apparently adopting the "defiant to the end" approach.

"It isn't?" Saban asked from behind me. "What, then, do you think would have happened if this one's trainer had been waiting in the bushes?"

Nina's mother tore her attention from her daughter. "What? What are you talking about, Saban?"

"She had a trainer," he growled.

"What is she doing here?" I tried not to be offended by her appalled tone. After all, I didn't think she meant it personally….

"She claimed that she escaped. However, I don't want to take the chance of her running to her hidden trainer and leading it here. She'll stay with us," Saban said firmly.

I wasn't about to point out that leaving me in the forest was more logical, but I couldn't help thinking it.

"She can't be here," Nina's mother hissed and placed Nina behind her, "She could escape."

Saban seemed to shrug, "There is a chance that she was telling the truth. Another pack might kill her for what she's told me. I see no reason not to give her a chance to prove herself."

I couldn't keep quiet about that.

"Really? I thought you hated me. And my name is Rylie," I said hotly. Somehow Saban wasn't as scary here. I guess the way the light form the small fire this pack lit was washing over him seemed to make him less fierce.

He turned to glare at me, but my newfound confidence spurred me on.

"What? You practically attack me in that clearing, then you kidnap me and now you want me to keep quiet while you guys talk about throwing me out while I'm still here? I didn't ask for any of this! I should be at home, watching t.v., but no, I had to fall for Connor's crap and now I'm lost in this Arceus forsaken forest," I shouted. It felt good to shout. I actually kept going, it felt so good.

"I just want to go back to the city. That's it. I don't want to come back here, I don't ever want to to see that Rocket again and I just want to go home." I snarled.

The silence that met my outburst left me extremely self-conscious. I'm not much of a yeller. Shouting gives me a headache, in fact. I see tantrums as pointless, yet here I am throwing one in front of complete strangers.

They were all staring at me too, which did nothing to make me feel any better. Nina looked shocked that I could yell like that, her mom just seemed surprised that a complete stranger shouted at her in her own home and Saban seemed to be sizing me up.

I suddenly felt angry at that. What right did he have to treat me like this? He doesn't know anything about me, or my situation. However, that didn't seem to stop him from trying to judge me. It was like I was a Rocket instead of a victim. Like I was here to doom them all to a terrible fate, then set the forest on fire while laughing away.

"You know what? I was going to see if you could help me, but it's obvious that you aren't going to. I'll just leave and you can forget about this," I said bitterly.

"Wait, Rylie!" Nina forced her way out from behind her mother, "Tell her you're sorry! Tell her that you'll help, she didn't do anything," she begged her family.

I didn't bother stopping though. They weren't going to listen to her, but I was surprised that no one besides Nina tried to stop me. Saban made such a big deal about leaving me alone, but he apparently must have realized that I'm not a real threat. He also must think that I'm not worth helping….

Once I stormed back out into the forest, the full weight of my situation hit me. No one is going to help me. I'm in strange place in a strange body and somehow, I was going to have to find my way back to the city and to help. Which was supposed to come in the form of the sixteen-year-old boy that got me into this mess in the first place.

Maybe I could have found my way had I not made that pointless trip with Saban and Nina, but as it is; I no longer have any idea where the city's general position was. I could have just started walking back in the direction I came before this, but now I had no idea where I was. I should have just paid attention; I was stupid not to. The only thing I could think to do was pick a random direction and just start walking. Hopefully, I'd just come across Goldenrod, however, I wouldn't say no to a marked route that could lead to the city.

So, that's what I did. I began to just stubbornly and doggedly walk straight. For the first time, I could admit that I was glad to be stuck like this. Granted, being a vulpix symbolized my whole problem, but if I had gotten lost as a human, I would not have the excellent night vision that was currently keeping me from getting tangled and tripped by foliage.

It was a good thing I was so angry right now. Otherwise, I would have passed out from sheer exhaustion by now. That anger was the only thing keeping me going now. I was angry at Saban for not helping me so I needed to get away from them. I was angry at Connor so I wanted to go to him and maybe kick his butt for this. I wanted to at least bit him for sure.

That's how I decided to pass the monotonous time of walking through the forest. My revenge schemes get more complicated as my walk went on. Unfortunately for me, I spent a bit more of my attention on the schemes than on my surroundings. I was so caught up in my imaginations of recruiting Loki to torture Connor that I failed to notice the beedrill nest. I just sort of walked right into it.

I didn't realize what happened at first because it was like the calm before the battle. No movement, no sound, but then all hell broke loose. Incessant buzzing filled the previously still air and a wall of beedrill suddenly appeared before me. On the ground in front of me, there were kakuna and weedle strewn about. Both the beedrill and the weedle prepared to attack me and I completely froze for a moment.

They seemed to stare me down for a few moments, like they could not believe that someone was stupid enough to stride into their domain. I really couldn't believe it either. My body was debating what to do. Running was the obvious choice, but it also seemed to think that freezing in terror was viable too. Fortunately, it made its decision once the pokémon charged me.

I managed to bolt just before the weedle were able to ensnare me in some sort of web thing, but the beedrill were another matter. They seemed hell bent on punishing me for trespassing and it was all I could do to keep ahead of them. I was lucky that the trees were thick enough that they kept getting behind.

We don't have beedrill in Hoenn. Sure, I knew of most pokémon because of t.v. and stuff, but I had no idea what they could do from a trainer's perspective. How do I get rid of them? Is it just a matter of out lasting them, or will they doggedly pursue me until I die from exhaustion?

The night vision turned out to be useless. I was so desperate to get away, that I never saw the root lying across my path. It caught on my paw and I spun right over it and landed on my back. I could not believe that this was how it was going to end. Death by bug…. Rylie, you manage to escape Team Rocket, survive hostile ninetales, but your destiny is to die in the forest at the… hands of bugs.

I quickly decided that I am not the type to face what's coming to me right 'til the very end, so I screwed me eyes shut. Everything seemed to go slower and I found myself hoping that my family doesn't kill Loki without me there to act as a buffer.

Nothing happened though.

Actually, that wouldn't be accurate. Something _did _happen, but nothing happened to me. I heard something jump over me and I snapped my eyes open. Cream white fur greeted me and I was completely confused as to why I was looking at the stomach of a ninetales rather than the bulbous red eyes of my pursuers.

The smell of burning insects filled the air as my savior let forth a stream of fire. At least, I assumed that the scent of burning hair was associated with what was happening. The first few beedrills didn't stand a chance. As soon as my knight in near shining fur stopped with the attack, they dropped to the ground, singed. Their cohorts seemed to realize that this guy wasn't something to mess with and flew off.

Well, all but two did anyway. They stayed and started to circle my savior and he followed them with his eyes. Suddenly, one of the beedrill let forth some of that web stuff and tried to tangle the ninetales with it while the other dove toward him with a fierce double attack from its huge stingers.

The ninetales weathered the attack, but unleashed another devastating barrage of fire at his attacker in return. The other beedrill tried to help his companion by releasing more of its sticky thread, but the ninetales only responded by burning off what accumulated on him.

The offensive beedrill was apparently going to fight to the end. It again came forward, but this time it kept up the strikes. The ninetales took each strike as it came and only snarled in response to any pain he may be feeling. He switched tactics this time and but down harshly onto the bug before it could fly out of his reach. This was the last blow the insect could take before it let out a cry and fell to the ground.

I think the other beedrill should have made its escape, but these things were either stupid or stubborn. Maybe they were both. Regardless the other one still held its ground and the ninetales left me for the first time since he appeared and pounced on it. He bit it fiercely and this bite seemed much more serious than the one he gave to the first one.

However, the beedrill was able to take the attack and stung him in response with its bottom stinger. The ninetales hissed in pain and seemed to become impatient with this battle. He let forth a third and final fire attack. It engulfed the insect and he didn't stop until the beedrill gave a final cry.

He turned to me and I gasped in surprise.

"Saban? What – why did you… do… that?" I stuttered.

He growled loudly. "Let's get to that later. For now, I need some berries."

"Berries? Why?" I was a little miffed that he wanted to chow down instead of answering my questions. It's not like they're hard.

"You realize that beedrills have a tendency to be poisonous?" he managed to ask dryly before walking toward the bushes to his right.

He sounded breathless and pained and I immediately felt guilty. Not to mention stupid as well. I seriously thought he hated me but regardless if he did or not, he still saved me. Saban may not have killed the bugs, but that didn't mean they would have shown me the same mercy.

"Um… what do the berries look like?" I asked shyly.

"They're purple," he replied shortly.

I immediately started to search for them in another group of bushes. There were a ton of red and some blue, but it looked like the purple would be hard to find. I wanted to find these for him in a small gesture of gratitude on my part, but I didn't want to get too far from Saban. In fact, I kind of found myself inching my way to him like I couldn't stand to be away from him. Of course, I was being stupid; nothing was going to just out of the trees for me….

Shaking my head to clear my paranoia, I used my small size to make my way through the bushes to see if I could find anything. I ignored the thorns as best I could because it wasn't like they were something too complain about when my… companion had poison running through him. Yes, a few thorns were easy to deal with in comparison.

"Hey, I found some! I think," I said from inside the third bush I explored.

The amount of happiness in my voice irritated me a little. Sure, I'm grateful to him and all, but I'm still pretty upset with how he's been treating me.

"Let me see them," I heard Saban's muffled voice say.

It took e a bit to navigate me way out because the branches kept getting tangled in my tails, but I finally made it out.

"Yeah, that's them," he stated once I was able to show him, "Thanks."

"Oh… uh, yeah. I mean you're welcome. Wait, thank you… You're the one that saved me to begin with so I guess you wouldn't need the berries to start with if it wasn't for me…," I trailed off when I noticed that he was staring at me.

Once he was satisfied that I was through babbling, he ate the berries. I was shocked at the effects it had on him. I heard that potions and antidote had immediate effects on pokémon, but I didn't know that anything that grew naturally could achieve the same results. The fact that pokémon knew about them surprised me too.

"Those actually cure poisoning?" I asked just to make sure.

"Yes," he said gruffly like he was stating the obvious. I guess he was.

"What do the others do?"

He seemed to almost shrug, "Many things. The red improve vitality. Others will cure paralysis; there is a berry that will clear away confusion. They do many things," he repeated.

"How did you guys figure that out?" I was impressed.

The disbelieving look he was giving me intensified, but he decided to let the matter drop, "How could you walk right into a beedrill nest?"

Maybe the berry discussion was better.

"I don't know. I guess I wasn't paying attention." I answered lamely.

"You guess," he repeated flatly, "Well, you either know or you don't. Which is it?"

"I wasn't, okay? What's with the lecture mode?" I demanded.

"And you expect to find the city like that? By not paying attention and getting killed?"

"I was doing fine before then!"

"Yes, I suppose you were, with your wonderful sense of direction. The human city is to the north," he informed me flatly.

"I- I knew that!" I insisted stubbornly.

"Which is exactly why you've been storming through the forest and blindly going west."

"What do you want, Saban? I'm really confused here. First, you don't want to help me. Then, you do by dragging me to your home. _Then_, you don't, but after that you decide to just spontaneously save my life _and now_ you seem hell bent on torturing me with endless questions!" I yelled.

"That temper won't get you home," he answered mildly.

"I – what- you –Gah!" I gave up and walked past him.

"That direction is south."

I let out a frustrated whine and changed direction. I expected Saban to just go back home, but he was either concerned about me or he wanted to irritate me to death. As I stomped through the forest, he followed me.

"What do you want," I snapped back at him.

"I don't plan on taking you to the city at night. We should go back."

"Yeah? Well, I don't need you to take me anywhere."

"There are more dangerous things in this forest than beedrill. Namely, others of our kind. We don't take to strangers too well," he stated.

"Don't I know it," I muttered, and then more loudly, "I can handle myself."

"If you can't handle the beedrill, you will not be able to handle a great deal of other pokémon. Especially if you won't have an advantage over those other pokémon. Your former human was obviously sub-par in teaching you how to fight," he pointed out.

"Oh, so you believe me now?"

"I think I've trailed you enough to establish your story as true."

"But why? Why are you doing all this?"

It was infuriating. I was just trying to get home and, yes, I do need help but I don't know if I want it from Saban now. He seemed to change his mind as quickly as the light train got to Saffron and I don't want to be abandoned after getting my hopes up. It was better to try to find my own way.

"Why do you want to return if your human was so terrible to you?" the question threw me off because he seemed so genuine about it.

I didn't know how to answer that. How was I going to explain that I really didn't have a human? Lying was always an option, I guess….

"I didn't live with the human. She, um… kidnapped me from the family I lived with so I just want to get back to them."

Well, that wasn't much of I lie but I still didn't like the idea of hinting that I'm owned by somebody.

He only grunted at that, but started to walk in the other direction.

"Hey, where are you going?" I asked after him.

"I told you that I'm not going through the forest in the dark."

"So, you're going to help me?"

"Yes," was all he said.

"But, you still haven't told me why."

"It's so obvious that you'll never be able to survive out here. I'm doing everybody a favor. You get to return to your humans, and we don't have to worry about you attracting humans here with your bumbling," he answered.

"Thanks, I guess."


	9. Crushing and Beatings

**Whew, got this one on time today, I didn't think I would...**

* * *

><p><strong>Crushing and Beatings<strong>

"Authorities report that there has been a dramatic increase in missing person reports. While the Goldenrod Police Department claims to be following this alarming trend closely, they do warn citizens to travel in groups and advise trainers to keep one pokémon out of its poké ball at all times."

Sara turned the t.v. on mute and I shot her a nod of thanks. It was all the media would report on lately and I don't know how much longer I can take it. At first, all the reports did were spur us on and inspire us to work harder than ever. Now, it felt suffocating and reminded me of how I ran. The way I had saved myself and threw Rylie under the bus.

I used to talk to Sara about that, but last week, she had pretty much exploded and told me to stop whining. Actually, she was a bit more tactful about it, but the sentiment was there. She didn't blame me anymore, in fact, I'm not even sure she truly blamed me in the first place, but she did have a problem with me still talking about it. Sara felt that I should stop thinking about that night and focus harder on the Rocket base. I agreed with her, but that didn't really help anything.

We were in our third week of preparation. Sara could now defeat some of the other rookie trainers and even began to grasp some of the lesser known aspects of being a trainer. She was still a liability though. Fortunately, I was improving too or else I would be more concerned than I already am. We had to leave Goldenrod though. There weren't enough pokémon types around here to create good, well-balanced teams and we needed to expose ourselves to harder battles.

"I'm not sure my parents are going to agree to this. They were already pretty hard to convince when I told them I wanted a Trainer I.D.," Sara told me as we looked over a Johto map.

"Winter break is coming up in two weeks. Tell them that you want to take the semester off for a challenge, kids do it all the time," I said as I drew a route on the map.

"Yeah, but they always made it very clear that I need to put school over pokémon. They aren't going to understand why I won't wait for the summer."

I sighed as I erased the dry-erase marks. That route wouldn't bring us to enough types. Maybe we need to use the Dark Cave as a short cut….

"Then tell them that I'm leaving at the break and you want to come with me."

"That won't work either," Sara let out a frustrated breath.

I looked up from the map and shot her a puzzled scowl.

"And why won't that work? Plenty of prospective trainers like to leave with each other."

"When they're ten," Sara responded, "Think about it, Connor. We're sixteen, I'm a girl, you're a guy and we would be leaving on a journey with no supervision."

"Why should that matter? We're alone all the time and nothing has ever happened," I pointed out.

She sighed, "They think Andrew is with us."

"Why?"

Sara looked a little uncomfortable when I asked her that, though I couldn't figure out why. I also couldn't figure our why she hadn't told her parents about Drew yet, or why they hadn't noticed that he hasn't gone over to her house since the fight. My mom realized that Drew and I had gotten into some kind of argument a few days after it happened.

"Umm… well, they don't really like you right now," she said awkwardly.

My brow furrowed at that. It didn't make much sense to me. I'd known her parents since pre-school and as far as I knew, I'd never done anything to get on their bad side.

She backpedaled at the look on my face.

"It's not really you, so much as me," Sara said quickly, "and it's not like they really _don't _like you. More like they like Andrew better right now."

"That makes no sense."

"Uh, you remember that thing I told you in the eighth grade?"

"No, that was two years ago."

"Connor, I told you and we didn't talk to each other for two months! That thing," she snapped irritably.

"Ah. Yeah, but what does _that _have to do with anything? Wait, they found out, didn't they?"

"Kinda."

"Okay, fine, I guess that makes sense, but that was two years ago. You would have gotten over…. Uh, I think I get it now," I said awkwardly.

For her part, Sara looked mortified that she had to explain this to me. I was embarrassed too, but the last thing I wanted to do was alienate her… again. So, I brushed past that as best I could and moved on to my next question. Besides, we've known each other for years and this wasn't the first completely embarrassing, or even humiliating, moment we've had together.

"So, um, why do they like Drew more? I though he got on their nerves."

"He's also made it very clear that he's distinctly asexual right now. There's nothing between us whatsoever and they picked up on that. Sorry, but they're going to think you, uh, want something from me until some other guy comes into the picture," she said as she concentrated very hard on the map.

"Great," I muttered, "Well, I've got nothing to offer for an excuse now. If you want to help, you're going to have to figure your own story out. You've got two weeks to think of something."

"What are you telling your mom?"

"That I want to go on a challenge again. I always sent money home last time around and that helped out around here. She'll never admit it, but we would be a lot better off if I had a job," I answered.

"Why don't you get one?" she asked curiously.

I shrugged, "She won't let me. I think she doesn't want me to feel like I've got to take care of her and Katie, but that's stupid. This way, I'm helping her and I'm supposedly being a kid at the same time."

Silence came over us and I started to look at the map again. We definitely needed to hit the Safari Zone on Cianwood and it would be great if we could get into the Dragon Den, but that wasn't going to be easy. Maybe even impossible. Supposedly, only Kris was permitted inside as a sort of honorary dragon trainer or something.

"I knew it!" I heard a young girl yell from the kitchen door.

I turned to see my kid sister pointing at us in shock. I had no idea what she was talking about until I turned back to Sara and realized that with us both pouring over the map on the table, we looked like we were getting much closer to each other than we really were.

Sara looked embarrassed to have been reminded of what we were talking about and a little afraid at the same time. Maybe she was afraid of what I was going to say to that.

"Katie, go away," I ordered and pointed to the living room.

"I'm gonna tell Mom about this," she said as she streaked out.

"Fantastic," I muttered. My mom would be ecstatic if she believed her. For some reason, she thought we were a good match or something.

Since Sara looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her, I decided it would probably be best if I pretended that didn't just happen. She seemed to have the same sentiment as she watched me draw another route on the map.

"Can't we just focus on battling? You can just lend me pokémon."

"Nope," I answered as I looked up some breeding grounds on my Pokédex, "I only have a handful of pokémon left and they're too high level for you."

"What happened to catching all the pokémon you can see?"

"I did, but I've been an inactive trainer for six years. The Pokémon League won't let me store more than a few pokémon so they can allocate storage space to more dedicated trainers. Basically, once you go inactive, you lose storage for all those pokémon. I had to release them," I explained.

Neither of us to think of a way to keep the conversation going, so descended into silence once again. I don't know if Sara had the same idea, but I was desperately trying to cleanse my brain of what we had been talking about earlier. Things were going to be awkward between us for awhile, that much I could tell. What I can't tell is whether or not I'm actually rejecting her. I can't tell if I don't like her. Of course, I don't _not _like her… this was way too confusing and I just don't have time to sort this out and I won't have it until we get Rylie out.

That's just it, though. There is no way I can even think about this kind of thing until we save her. It would get in the way and the last thing I want to do is endanger her even more by getting distracted. This was going to be an all-or-nothing situation, so Sara was going to have to wait until after we save Rylie to get anything out of me. If there is anything to get at all.

"I'm going to the forest," I said suddenly.

Usually, Sara offers to go with me, but she either realized that I didn't want her with me or she needed space herself because she stayed quiet this time.

* * *

><p>I had no doubt as to what was really happening to the missing people, but I still traveled with no less than three pokémon and I had my growlithe out with me. The last thing I wanted was to be caught off guard, because for all I know, the Rockets could have graduated to taking people off the street. Sure, the likelihood of that actually being the case was practically non-existent but I've gotten pretty paranoid since Rylie's "disappearance."<p>

My growlithe, whom I named Rocket with my morbid sense of humor, was running all over the place as I walked to the south side of the city. He was relatively new to the humane lifestyle; I'd captured him only last week and he was apparently young if his hyper activity was any indication. Rocket actually reminded me of Loki, but, fortunately, Rocket was way better at listening. At least, he is compared to the Loki before Rylie's capture. According to Sara, who heard from Rob, Loki has done nothing but eat, sleep and lie in Rylie's bed. I felt sorry for the little guy when I head that, in my opinion the world isn't really the same without that eevee raising hell.

I was expecting some trainers to challenge me one the route leading to Ilex Forest, but the place was deserted. Normally, this wouldn't have bothered me too much because the other trainers could have easily left if they heard that bad weather was coming. Only… the sky was completely clear and there would be at least a couple of hardcore trainers out still if that was the case. When Rocket decided to walk right beside me with his ears held back, I decided that something was wrong.

Even the small building that opens into the forest was empty. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to continue on after I saw this, but my curiosity ended up forcing me to go on. Hopefully, it won't cause something terrible to happen this time.

There was a window set into the door leading out into the trees and I peered through it to see if I could get a clue as to what was happening here. Fortunately, the Rockets had decided to leave a couple of grunts at the door for guard duty. Maybe if they left someone with more experience, or competence, they would have known not to stay in sight of anyone coming. After all, it's a lot easier to be intimidating of your victims don't prepare for you. There was also that small detail of the authorities not yet knowing of Team Rocket's return and I wondered what would happen if a cop came by and saw these two in their uniform. It'd probably be funny….

The grunts couldn't have been more than a few years older than me. They were probably right out of high school. If I didn't have any pokémon with me, I might have worried about the guy. He was much larger than me, but his girlfriend was pretty much a walking stick. It didn't matter, though, because I had my pikachu and golem with me and they were two of my most powerful pokémon. Rocket would probably have to sit this one out, but who knows? The grunts might really suck. Wait… they might suck enough for me to get something more than experience out of this….

"Think you can handle them, Rocket?" I asked him.

Rocket cocked his head at me in confusion and I sighed. So far, the growlithe understood his name and two attacks, but the rest of the English language was beyond him. I'm sure he'll catch on eventually, but I was so short on time. All the training and teaching only seemed to make me more anxious.

Well, I'm sure Rocket will figure it out. I threw open the door and had the pleasure to see both the grunts scramble away from each other to confront me.

"Forest's closed, kid," the girl sneered.

I didn't bother to hide my snort at that. She was shorter than me and if it wasn't for the maturity in her face, I'd think she was younger than me.

"Yeah, whatever," I told her as I tried to brush past. I wasn't going to make a problem out of this unless they did. And I know that they will.

The guy stepped in front of me, "You know what this means, kid?" he barked and pointed at the "R" on his shirt.

"Retarded? Ridiculous? Maybe redundant if you tell me the forest is closed again? Hmm… can't really come up with any more insulting adjectives that begin with 'r.' I'm a bit off my game today," I drawled.

The Rocket guy fingered a poké ball on his belt threateningly.

"Team Rocket, you idiot. That's what the 'R' stands for," the girl said through gritted teeth.

I sighed, "You just explained the joke. That makes it unfunny."

"Look, kid," the guy said as he got in my face, "Just get out of here before you make Team Rocket mad."

Rocket began to growl threateningly.

"Be careful, you're confusing him with you constantly saying his name. Don't make this worse by threatening me too; you'll just get bitten," I warned good naturedly. After all, it was duty to warn others if my pokémon was a potential danger.

"I don't care about that mutt," he growled and pushed me.

Just as I predicted, my growlithe went off the deep end and latched onto the Rocket's calf. He roared in pain and I bemusedly wondered why Rocket could bite a human now, but wouldn't do the same thing to a pokémon in battle. By the sound of the guy's cries of pain, Rocket had a nasty bite to his name.

"Rocket, come here," I ordered sharply before the girl could attempt to hurt him.

The growlithe probably only picked up on his name, but he seemed to get my intentions anyway. He released the grunt and returned to my side, wagging his tail happily.

The bitten grunt let out another roar, but this time in anger.

"That's it, kid! We tried to tell you to get out of here, but it looks like I'm gonna have to beat your ass to get this through."

He unclipped one of the two poké balls from his belt and unleashed the standard rattata that Rocket grunts are known for. It chattered angrily at my growlithe who seemed eager to battle the small rodent.

"Rattata, Hyper Fang," he ordered.

The purple pokémon lunged for Rocket with blinding speed. I didn't even get a chance to try to tell Rocket to dodge—which he wouldn't have understood—before he let out a yelp of pain.

Rocket staggered away from the rattata and looked up to me for an order. I was thinking this over, though. My growlithe didn't look like he could take very many shots like that and I debated if I should switch him out.

"Use Ember," I ordered him.

Rocket stepped up and unleashed a small flame attack. The rattata flinched backward and cried out as it was burned. Good, hopefully that will even the playing field….

"Hyper Fang, dammit," the gangster yelled angrily.

The rattata lunged forward again but this time, Rocket wasn't where the rodent thought he'd be. All of us, except for the growlithe, was shocked that he'd managed to dodge that. I was going to have to get him a treat for that….

"Give him another Ember, Rocket!"

He flamed the rattata again while he shuddered from the burn. I smirked as the pokémon seemed to be fading faster than I thought he would.

"Quick Attack," the grunt ordered through his teeth.

My pokémon had no chance to dodge the rattata this time and I expected Rocket to suffer a pretty bad hit again. The burn, however, seemed to have cut the rattata's attack severely and Rocket only stumbled under the blow.

"One more should get him," I told the growlithe, "Ember!"

Again, Rocket let out the fire attack, but the rattata just barely managed to roll away from the fire. The purple pokémon seemed to be limping now.

"Quick Attack, Rattata! Take it out now!" the guy screamed.

Rocket took the attack again, but he lost his footing this time.

"Yeah, Hyper Fang, Rattata!" the Rocket crowed.

"Come on, Ember!" I yelled just as the rattata lunged forward.

From the ground, Rocket blew out the attack. The rat had to have been only a foot away from Rocket as the ember hit him. Maybe if it had been ordered to do a Quick Attack, Rocket would have lost…. Fortunately, the gang member wasn't the best trainer. As the rattata streaked forward and was hit by the attack, the Rocket actually turned away from me like he had won the entire battle, but once he turned back and saw Rocket staggering to hit feet proudly, he figured out what happened.

He began to curse loudly as he reached for his other poké ball.

"Great job, Rocket, but you're done for now," I scratched Rocket's head before I had him return. The last thing I saw of Rocket was his nearly smiling face.

"Zubat, you better do somethin'," the Rocket growled as he let the bat pokémon out.

I've never really understood the logic of giving the main units of a force crappy pokémon. Granted, if the Rocket was any good, it would grow to become a very powerful force, but the fact that he wasn't really helped me here. That zubat had a weakness to both of my remaining pokémon and it seemed to be a much lower level.

"You're up, Sparx," I said as my pikachu was released from her poké ball, "Thunderbolt."

Sparx stepped up and a powerful, yellow lightning attack was unleashed from her red cheek sacks. It streaked towards the flying pokémon and it cried out as the electricity engulfed it. This round of the battle ended very quickly as the zubat fell to the ground, twitching. I really love one hit K.O.s.

"Man, you are useless, Anthony," the girl sneered as the stepped forward, "Let's see how my rattata does."

Another rat pokémon was released and I had to roll my eyes. Perhaps the "R" really does stand for redundant. Seriously though, do these people go out to train? The rattata won't stand a chance against my golem.

I pulled Sparx back and tossed out Coal. It's a good thing that Pokémon League doesn't make inactive trainers earn badges again because Coal tends to be arrogant. He turned to me and gave me as close as a human look of disbelief as he could. Apparently, he wouldn't choose to fight a rattata.

"Hyper Fang!" the girl ordered.

The second rattata actually looked pained as it bit Coal's body. Coal looked disinterested in comparison.

"Alright, Coal, I know you don't want to fight it, so let's get this over with as quickly as you can. Magnitude!"

The ground surrounding the rattata began to shake heavily. If I had to guess, I'd say that Coal unleashed a Magnitude 7 on the smaller pokémon. I really can't say for sure because I left my Pokédex at home in my hurry to leave. Anyway, several rocks ripped themselves from the ground and rammed into Coal's opponent. Once the dust cleared, we could all see that the rattata was not going to get up.

The girl let out a frustrated yell, but then she started to give me a creepy smile.

"Your Ground pokémon can't do much against my hoothoot!" the smile seemed crazed now.

I had to snort at her stupidity. Not only did she not understand that the hoothoot wasn't going to do much against Coal's ridiculously hard outer shell, but she also apparently doesn't grasp the concept of dual types. Not to mention her short attention span, I mean she _just _saw my pikachu….

The owl pokémon appeared suddenly and I brought my attention back to the battle as the bird attempted to peck Coal. He looked down at the bird disdainfully.

"You aren't very good at this, are you?" I asked the stick girl, "The geodude evolutionary chain is pretty well known, you know."

"What are you talking about?" she snapped, "Are you going to make you move, or what?"

"I'm talking about golems being a dual type. He's a Rock type too, you know," I said cheerily, "Coal, Rock Throw!"

The golem dug his fingers into the ground and hefted a massive rock out. He lifted it over his head easily and threw it right at the hoothoot. It hit spot on.

"You don't know what you just did, kid," Anthony said threateningly, "No one gets on Team Rocket's bad side and—"

"Get's away with it?" I interrupted, "Well, the "R" sure doesn't stand for revolutionary, because you guys are very predictable."

I took out Sparx's ball and released her behind the two Rockets.

"Alright, unless you want to get shocked or take a rock to the head, I suggest you stand there and answer some questions for me," I grinned mischievously. This worked out very well.

"Are you stupid? You have to know that we'd never betray Team Rocket!" the girl said passionately, but I could see the fear in her eyes as she said that.

"Yeah, whatever, you don't have to lie to me. I know what happens to you guys if you mess up."

"What?" Anthony shouted.

"I said I know about that freaky doctor and what she does, so don't feed me that loyalty crap," I elaborated.

The girl sneered at me, "If you know, then why do you think we would tell you anything?"

"I figured you have nothing to lose. I plan on going farther into the forest anyway, so you don't _have_ to tell me anything. I'd just rather know what your bosses are doing before I met them. Think of it this way, if what they're doing is so important that they can't have any witnesses, then you're already screwed. You failed to keep me away. As soon as the see me, they're going to know that the both of you messed up. So, how about you tell me what they're doing, then I'll let you run off. Of course, the both of you will have to leave town…," I shrugged.

"Let me out of here, kid," the girl screeched, "I ain't telling you anything!"

"Fine, how about this: We stay here and wait for your bosses to come back and do whatever they want with you. I'll probably still find out what they're doing once they come back, so it makes no difference to me."

"Dammit! They're trying to get a hold of a ninetales!" Anthony said suddenly.

His companion glared at him.

"Really? Can't they just change another pokémon into one? Or one of you? Why not do that instead of looking for one in here?"

"They don't tell us everything, kid," the girl snapped.

"Yeah, all we got from what the higher-ups were saying was that they needed an old ninetales so it could find something for the boss. That's all we know, kid, now keep your side of the bargain!"

I motioned for Coal to step away from the door and the Rockets flew past me to hopefully skip town. They may have been a pain in the ass, but that doesn't really warrant them getting changed into pokémon.

There was no way to tell if what they, or rather Anthony, told me was true, but I wasn't really going to hold them here anyway. It was too much of a risk for me, since I don't know how good senior Rockets are, but I figured I might as well try to bluff and see what I'd get.

It was probably true. No one really knows if there are vulpix or ninetales in Ilex. All we really get are sighting from people that get lost in the forest. Not that those accounts are sure to be real; by the time they get out, they're severely dehydrated and suffering from hallucinations. There's never been a real search for them and they aren't even listed to live here in the Pokédex.

Now, if what they said was true, why would the Rockets want a pokémon they don't have to catch?


End file.
